"Are you sure?"<\/p>\n
\nKurai sparred Noise a quick glance over her shoulder. Noise’s one wing drooped
\nnoticeably, her eyes were dark with worry, and she chewed—cutely—on her bottom
\nlip. She knew that she was asking a lot of her retainer, but she had a feeling
\nthat it would be best to investigate this newest anomaly within her realm on her
\nown. Even if it did make Noise deeply and obviously unhappy.<\/p>\n
\n"I’m sure."<\/p>\n
\n"I don’t like this."<\/p>\n
\nKurai laughed before she thought better of it. "I know. I’m sorry."<\/p>\n
\nNoise sighed with great feeling and ran her hands through her hair, making it
\nstand on end. "No, you’re not. But could you at least avoid getting too damaged
\nas I do not want to explain to those who care about you exactly what happened
\nand why."<\/p>\n
\nShe put her forehead against her best friend and companions. "I can’t make
\npromises I can’t keep. But I’ll try." Without moving her head she locked
\neyes with Noise and grinned, "I wouldn’t want you to deal with an unhappy
\nSetsuna."<\/p>\n
\nNoise tilted her head up and pressed a kiss against Kurai’s head. "Be quick.
\nBe safe."\n<\/p>\n
Kurai could only nod. Anything else would have been too much and unnecessary. \nShe heard Noise’s yell and then a roar like the rushing of a thousand wings and \n"Why are you here?"<\/p>\n \nShe looked up into eyes too dark a shade of green to be quite human and the way \n"Because this place is in my realm."<\/p>\n \nThe woman-girl cocked her head to the side, purple hair falling along the side Kurai did not know what to make of that comment, so she went around it. "Who \nThat seemed to give the woman-girl a pause. She fiddled with the gold bracelets—shakles—awkwardly \n"Witch?" Kurai repeated, tasting the term and the power inherent within \n"Because I have no prince to save me, because I want no prince to save me, \n"Why?" Kurai managed to gasp out, because she could not stand under \n"What are you?" she whispered.<\/p>\n \nThe woman-girl grabbed her by the shoulders, staring down in Kurai’s eyes with \n"Swords?" Kurai echoed dumbly. She was so confused. Even when Alexial \nThe woman-girl shoved her away so hard she stumbled, nearly twisting her ankle. \nKurai turned to start to run as the ground under her feet began to fracture. Cracks \n"Oi! Are you alright?"<\/p>\n \nBright blue eyes and bangs the colour of easter basket grass filled her vision, \nShe was flat on her back in the middle of a grass hill. The birds sang sweetly \nThe girl smiled brilliantly, "Good! I was worried for a moment. You started \nKurai stared at her. There was something around the edges of the girl. Something \nThe girl frowned, and Kurai realized that was a very odd thing to say. She forced \nThat seemed to clear up everything. "Yeah, the Academy can be confusing for \n"I’m Kurai." She reached out to take Utena’s hand when the other girl \n"UUUUUTTTEEEEEEENNNNNNNNAAAAA!" the missile sort itself out as a giggle \n"Utena-sama," Kurai looked up to see the woman-girl of the endless plain. \nUtena held the brown haired girl at arms length, but smiled gently at her. "Wakaba, \nThat got the attention of both the not-woman-girl and the brown haired missile. \nKurai couldn’t focus on the introductions that happened afterward. She felt too \nShe could feel power underneath her feet, could feel the different flavours of \nIt wasn’t until the sky began to change colour into the first hints of dusk that \nAnd she was unnerved.<\/p>\n \nBut it was Anthy, with her dark eyes and quiet manner that unnerved her the most. The Swords<\/strong><\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nAnd then she was standing in her own realm, next to Noise, shivering as if she Kurai finds something odd in her realm.
\n She turned away from Noise’s worried eyes to contemplate the perfect silver
\n bubble that had manifested on the out edges of her realm. The bubble touched
\n Assiah, butting up against so closely that it seemed to rub raw the psychic
\n skin keeping the planes apart. Staring at it she thought she saw flickering
\n images of a castle, a forest, a cathedral, and for a moment, and endless
\n plain of horizons. She didn’t really know how she was going to get from the
\n here<\/em> of Gehenna to the there<\/em> of the not quite real place
\n inside that bubble. Not knowing what else to do she placed her hands against
\n the silver, misty edge and pushed forward.\n<\/p>\n
\nthen there was nothing.<\/p>\n
\neternity echoed was definitely not human. The girl, on the edge of womanhood with
\nthe subtle swell of breast and hip just beginning, wore a short red shift and gold
\nbracelets that looked more like shackles than jewelry watched with perfect neutrality.
\nKurai picked herself up off the gray, dusty ground as she considered her answer.
\nThe emptiness of the place, and the knowledge in her companion’s eyes, makes her
\nnervous. <\/p>\n
\nof her face, half obscuring those inhuman eyes. "The place inside my head
\nis much bigger than the place outside it."\n<\/p>\n
\n are<\/em> you?"\n<\/p>\n
\nas she thought about it. "I am the Witch."<\/p>\n
\nit. <\/p>\n
\nI am the Witch." The woman-girl said plainly. There was no sorrow in this
\nstatement, only simple fact. "My world is fractured," the woman-girl
\nlocked eyes with Kurai and she felt as if she were drowning in all the years of
\nthis creature’s life on the endless plain of horizons, "I am fractured."<\/p>\n
\nthe weight of that self-knowledge. A distint rumble of what might be thunder rolled
\naround inside the emptiness. The woman-girl turned so fast her hair spun out in
\ntangled arch around her. The look of naked fear made Kurai reach to touch her,
\nbut she froze when the girl snapped back around with a movement so fast it could
\nnot have been mortal, maybe not even immortal. <\/p>\n
\nan intensity that chilled her to the bone, and said with fierce desperateness.
\n"The swords are coming, you have to run."<\/p>\n
\ncame back as Setsuna and the world turned inside out, and Heaven and Hell were
\nin chaos, she had not been this confused.<\/p>\n
\n"RUN!" She screamed. The woman-girl couched down, hair falling over
\nher face, obscuring those wild, inhuman eyes. "You have to run. The swords…"
\nthe woman-girl’s voice broke.<\/p>\n
\nforming underneath her faster than she could move, the constant shaking nearly
\nthrowing her to the fragmenting ground. She tried to scream as the ground vanished
\nand she was falling into nothing, and then there was darkness that wasn’t so much
\nthe abscence of light, but the abscence of everything.<\/p>\n
\nand Kurai could only gape. <\/p>\n
\nin the summer air and she smelled honeysuckle and roses. The girl leaning over
\nher smelled of roses, tea, and something sharp and tangy. And the desolate, endless
\nplain was gone. Kurai sat up and rubbed her head. "I … I think I am alright."<\/p>\n
\nfalling down the stairs and would have gotten hurt, but I caught you and brought
\nyou here."<\/p>\n
\nthat shone like starlight. Like the woman-girl in the endless plain this one was
\nnot quite … normal. There was a quality of eternity etched into her being like
\nthe runes etched into Alexial’s sword. The girl’s smile faultered for a moment
\nand Kurai realized that she had been staring a little too long. "I’m …
\nI’m sorry. Where am I?"<\/p>\n
\nherself to smile apologetically. "I’m new." She said by way of explination.<\/p>\n
\nnew students." She stuck out her hand in what struck Kurai as a singularly
\nstraight-forward gesture. As if everything this girl did was direct, honest, and
\nso innocent it hurt. "I’m Tenjou Utena."<\/p>\n
\nwas tackled by what appeared at first glance to be a low flying missile of some
\nsort. <\/p>\n
\ngirl with dark brown hair and the sweetest smile Kurai had seen since Setsuna.
\nThe girl nuzzled Utena, practically purring her head off. "MMmmmmm found
\nyou!" she giggled. <\/p>\n
\nExcept she was wrong. The echoing power, and the knowledge, and the intensity
\nof person was gone—even if the decided otherness was still there. Her hair was
\ncontained in tightly bound crown around her head, and those inhuman eyes were
\nhidden by glasses. But it was the girl, or at least part of her. Kurai chewed
\non her bottom lip. <\/p>\n
\nI meet someone new."<\/p>\n
\n"This is Kurai. And she’s new to Ohtori Academy."<\/p>\n
\ndisassociated and confused and completely and totally out of her depth to take
\nin any more information. Her mind was spinning. She found herself arm in arm with
\nthe bouncy, giggling brown haired girl and the sweetness of her soul overwhelmed
\neverything. Being near the girl was like … hot chocolate in winter or strawberries
\nin the middle of summer. She could feel herself relax bit by bit, as the girl—Wakaba?—giggle
\nup at Utena, tried to draw Anthy into conversation, and showed Kurai the landmarks
\nof this place.<\/p>\n
\nit as she walked the campus. And she could feel a very subtle, very familiar taint
\nto everything. A feeling of unspeakable foulness that lurked on the edges of everything
\nand made her shudder. <\/p>\n
\nKurai realized that she should probably leave, go back to Noise, and the relative
\nsafety of her own realm. She gently disentangled herself from Wakaba, and politely
\nthanked Utena. Who smiled, shook her head, and said that no, no she was glad to
\nhave been there to help. Utena helped her to her feet and Kurai felt for a moment
\nthe flicker of a thousand wings and the shine of starlight.<\/p>\n
\nAnd when she turned to leave, it was Anthy who caught her eyes, even behind the
\nshadowed rescesses of her glass. It was in those dark green eyes that she saw
\nthat woman-girl, that she saw Witch.\n<\/p>\n
\nhad walked into the dead of winter naked. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"