He stepped onto a wide stone platform, lined like the floor of the gym, but only in red, as though from the wounds of past duelists.

It was late in the evening. The forest Trowa had come through to reach this place had disappeared, and not even the school's observatory tower could be seen, just as he was sure he had never seen this platform from the school. It was not something one could miss.

Yet he was above the trees. Nothing but the clear summer sky surrounded him on all sides. So powerful was the effect of that boundless backdrop that it was easy to feel weightless in the heavy air, to think the breeze that tugged at his uniform could coax him from his feet into accidental flight. With almost nothing to create a shadow, a straying mind might think the next step would send him over the edge into the abyss, or misjudge how close the precipice really was and fall forever into nothingness. There were a few clouds in the sky now, far and few on the horizon, as though the heavens were tired of their own novelty. Diaphanous stromatolitic formations glowed light gold and pink in the late hour against a sky the same blue-green as Trowa's uniform.

He looked up to follow a lone contrail shooting across the blue—

—and what he saw for the first time in the sky directly above him, he could not believe.

A massive castle rotated there over his head, its crystalline domes pointing straight down at the center of the dueling platform. From this strange, upside-down bird's eye perspective, lights of various colors pulsed among the towers like the lights of an alien spaceship. It hovered like one as well, far above him, somehow, for there were no strings that could have supported such awesome mass. The whole thing defied the laws of physics. The impossible size of it threatened to expand and engulf Trowa, yet he could only stand there, with head tilted up, rapt, without any fear for himself. In incredulous awe.

"My God." His voice seemed to come not from himself. The sound was sucked away by the wind, into the empty space that surrounded the platform. "What is that?"

"Nothing more than an illusion. A trick of light."

Trowa turned at the sound of a voice he had only heard once before, at lunch on Saturday. Touga Kiryuu, the young man he knew only as the student council president, stood at the corner opposite. A ragged red line joined their feet across the platform, a tenuous and worn tether. And rising from the president's feet, glinting in a straight line parallel to his body and up to his hand, was an elegant sabre.

Trowa knew he must be the brother to whom that blond girl had referred: his actual Page of Swords. And Judgment slowly turned above their heads.

Trowa looked up again, repeated to himself: "An illusion."

Touga shrugged. "Or perhaps something real after all. Isn't that what you're here to find out?"

With a gentle smile, the student council president glanced off to his right. Only then did Trowa saw Anthy Himemiya standing there.

But she was not herself. He did not need to be told she was the Rose Bride whose identity he had secretly wondered at: the prize Trowa would be fighting for, if all that he had been told was correct. That knowledge surprisingly affected him little. She wore a red dress now, sleeveless and with a long, full skirt. Gold threads and epaulettes adorned the bodice, and a thin crown sat atop her head. The breeze that reached them so far up into the atmosphere moved the fabric of her skirt and a few stray hairs, but otherwise she stood still as a statue, or a robot, waiting. Only the occasional blink of her green eyes behind her glasses indicated a life, a consciousness behind them. Though he might have once thought otherwise, he had never seen eyes that seemed so cold.

Trowa's legs took him forward of their own volition. He knew instinctively what needed to be done. In a way, he had been training all year for this. Himemiya attached a rose to the left side of his chest, a light mahogany color with dark leaves and a musty scent. This I will defend against all opposers, he recalled, watching her dark fingers.

Touga said to him, "I assume you know what to do, if you've come this far. Mr. Winner already explained the objectives to you?"

Trowa almost corrected him, but something stopped him before he could. Just as it had with the blond girl—some feeling that it was best if everyone believed what they wanted to believe.

He nodded slowly. Recalled Juri's words. "Fight the one engaged to the Rose Bride," Trowa heard himself say, "for the power to revolutionize the world."

By the satisfied look on Touga's face, he knew he was on the right track.

Trowa took the sword offered him. He ran his fingers over the sabre's thin blade, over the metal arabesques of the hand guard that seemed distinctly meant for someone other than himself. Someone who thought if he merely apologized, any wounds he opened might be forgiven. "But who is that one?"

Touga's only response was to look over Trowa's shoulder, where Utena Tenjou was just stepping through the gate.

Her dark boy's uniform had changed. Now it was ruffled at the hem, white over red under black, and decorated like a soldier's: Fourragere swung from one side of her chest, one of Ohtori's white roses was pinned to the other, flashing in the late light against the red lip of the pocket.

Trowa's uniform, too, had been transformed on the way here to suit a duelist. His blue-green jacket was now double-breasted and studded with two rows of brass buttons, and fit snug and short on his narrow waist. His trousers, white like those of a member of the student council. Gold cords hung heavy around his right arm, held in place by red and gold chevroned bands on both shoulders. The cuffs that reached almost to his elbows were of the same scheme, like the cuffs of an officer who had earned their privilege. There was something thrilling about seeing himself so changed, a thrill of being caught wearing the colors of the enemy. But then, it had never really been his uniform to begin with.

Utena's eyes widened when she realized he was her challenger. The determination set into her face faltered—if only momentarily. "Triton? What are you doing here?"

"I've come to challenge you for the Rose Bride's hand." The line rolled off Trowa's tongue as easily as if it had been fed to him from the edge of the stage. He showed her the ring on his own hand; it was all the proof anyone could need that what he said was true. "It seems to be a condition of my enrollment here."

"But it wasn't you who was supposed to be here. You're not a member of the student council. No one can make you fight."

"On the contrary, I don't really have a choice. What you say is correct: No one is forcing me. I chose to accept the invitation even though this fight was not intended for me. However. . . ."

He let his gaze slip down to the sabre in his grip, the perfect and purposeful curve of its blade. How it seemed almost to speak to him. "I cannot deny, now that I'm here, that this is the reason I was accepted into this school. It's the reason I came."

Utena started. Something he said struck unnervingly close to home.

"You're wrong," she said, however. "What about all that stuff you said about Quatre being your inspiration? Was that just a lie?"

"That and this are one and the same. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Then he put you up to this? He thought as long as he sent someone in his place, he wasn't breaking his promise?"

"No." Trowa matched her gaze. Amazing how calm he felt in that conviction, and how powerful. "It's true I'm doing this for Quatre. But I am also doing it to spite him. Blame him, if you want, for what I do. Blame him for who he is. The truth is, he doesn't want me here. That's how I know it's the right place to be. The last thing in the world Quatre wants is for me to have the Rose Bride. Coward that he is, he doesn't want her himself. However, he knows if I win, I will have defeated him once and for all."

"How could you say that if he's really your friend?" Utena said. "How could you treat him that way? Never mind that—how could you do that to Himemiya? Don't you realize how selfish you sound? I thought you cared about her. I thought you were a kind person!"

"And you were mistaken," Trowa said, merely stating the fact. "You must have had the wrong person in mind all along. Don't you know I'm a no-good, spoiled, bastard son? A born traitor?"

"I refuse to believe something like that."

He glanced down briefly, amused. "Then perhaps you would be more willing to buy something along the lines of destiny. After all, that's the reason you're here. Isn't it?"

Utena was still as she continued to regard him, as he stood between her and Himemiya, not trusting herself to respond. He had touched something with his words that was buried deep inside herself, some feeling she had not cared to analyze in any depth, for fear of what she might find if she started too far down the path.

Yet there remained in her that need to protect something that was important. Above all else, and despite all else, that remained. What happened when two people at odds with one another shared the same goal, she knew only too well. Well enough to dread the consequences.

"Even if that was the case," Utena said at last, "you and I cannot be destined for the same thing. It's impossible."

Trowa bent his knees and raised his arm to an en garde stance then, aiming the point of his sabre at the rose on her beast.

"If that's what you believe," he told her, "then fight. Prove what you believe is true. Prove me wrong."

Please.

Utena retrieved her sword. She held it out before her at the ready, both hands around the golden grip that ended in a pink rose pommel.

Her poise, the spacing of her feet, while determined, were amateurish; she let her nerves be written on her sleeve for any rival to read at leisure. Trowa pitied her for it, at the same time as happy certainty surged through him. If he could succeed in beating Quatre before, he could not expect to lose against an opponent such as this.

In the distance, the bells tolled. Not for the hour, but for them.

Up here above the trees, where time did not exist.

Trowa attacked first. Lowering his blade, he rushed at her, breaking the tension, striking where he knew even Utena would be able to defend easily. He had to know what she would do—he had to listen to her reactions, to read her decisions, to learn everything that had brought her to this point. Then he could set up his victory.

Utena did not hesitate to engage him. Her parry was strong, the effort behind it great, greater than it needed to be, passionate—so opposite of Quatre's precision and arrogant ease. He could not have known how much she had improved over just the past few months, but her lack of formal training was evident. Like an ugly pipe that roses couldn't quite conceal.

Trowa let his instincts guide him. He guarded himself against Utena's attacks easily; her body's movements gave her intentions away long before she made her move.

Needless to say, however, her aim was sound. She pushed him back with a steady stream of thrusts and cuts. The ring of steel on steel as the blades batted and slid against each other set a solid rhythm that could only lead to one inevitable climax, whether one was the victor or the other.

Destiny did not care which.

I bemoan the wounds of Fortune
With weeping eyes,
For the gifts she made me
She perversely takes away.
It is written in truth
She has a fine head of hair,
But when it comes to seizing opportunity
She is bald.

He sidestepped her running attack easily. Predicting her sword would contact either Trowa's blade or his rose, Utena was not prepared when gravity pulled her down.

She stumbled past him. Turning her head to keep sight of him over her shoulder, her pink hair stuck like a veil to the side of her face and her eyes shone with fierce determination.

"I won't let you win!" she said.

Trowa's blade followed hers, even as he retreated a step.

"Then, by all means," he said. "Take your victory. I know you can do better than this. You'll have to, if you want to protect what it is you appear to care so much about."

Utena growled at his sarcasm as she whirled to face him again. "What, doesn't a self-named traitor have anything to protect?"

"Not anymore. That's why he's a traitor."

"Then what reason do you even have to be fighting!"

Trowa was beside her in a second. On reflex, Utena had brought her sabre to bear. The sudden pressure as his blade bore down on the handguard of her sword and brought a gasp from her. But she remained determined, matching his force.

"What reason have I not to?" The effort of the duel was beginning to creep into Trowa's own voice, though he remained incongruously calm and reasonable, as he matched her gaze across the crossed blades. "It got to you too, didn't it? The dream they've built in this place? You can't resist it when it calls you to come and take what you deserve, and neither can I. I won't be satisfied with what-ifs any longer. I have to see, one way or another, if this is indeed what is in store for me. If this was what I was invited here to see. Isn't that reason enough?"

"No!" Triton sounded as though he were reciting someone else's lines; there was a lack of faith beneath them that remained hidden from view. Like a cavity inside a load-bearing pillar, and Utena feared the consequences when it finally buckled under the weight.

It was almost certainly a trap, but she said regardless: "You have to make your own destiny. It can't already be written. Otherwise there is no point! To these duels, this school, life—any of it!"

"If that's the case," he said, bearing down on her, "then I will bring it all down."

With a grunt she pushed his weight off, and thrust in the minute window his recoil provided her. The point of her sabre sped toward the rose pinned to his breast—

And only narrowly missed as he turned his body, tearing a single petal down the central vein. But she could not dislodge it.

As Utena felt hope momentarily recede from her, Trowa looked down to assess the damage. One who knew him better might have caught the subtlest glimmer of satisfaction in those olive green eyes, just before he lunged toward her again.

On Fortune's throne
I used to sit raised up,
Crowned with
The various flowers of prosperity;
Though I may have flourished
Happy and blessed,
Now I fall from the peak
Deprived of glory.

Through the rose-crowned gate and up the immaculate stairs two or three at a time Quatre ran, wasting no time looking around him at those secrets that had plagued his mind this past week and were now finally revealed. They had lost their mystery for him. Now, they were nothing but an obstacle. A cold machine winding forever upward like a clock.

Quatre detested Ohtori even more, now that he saw the truth with his own eyes. For the cruelty designed conscientiously into it, for every extra second it cost him, every heartbeat it kept him from his goal, he detested it.

Utena didn't stand a chance against Trowa, against who he was now. That was why. He had to make it in time, before Trowa could strike the final blow. If he didn't . . .

Then it will truly be over.

That truth rang clear in Quatre's head. It drove him onward, gave him strength, even as it threatened to pull him down. Even as his legs burned from these endless stairs and his mind swam from going in circles. He tripped once, and it allowed his exertion to catch up with him. Only then did he realize how out of breath he was, how badly his muscles ached. But he pushed himself to his feet, grunting with the effort. He had to keep moving. For them both.

This can't be our destiny, he told himself. I can't allow him to make this mistake—my mistake. No more than I can allow myself to sit back and allow my most important thing to slip away. Again.

And I won't.

I won't lose him without a fight!

What he deserved. What they deserved. That question drummed on with every step, every breath of his duel, without answer.

Trowa knew what it should be, even if the figures did not add up. He knew what it was they deserved, and what they did not. Happiness was something to be earned, not to be tossed about with frivolity, marred with spite and resentment, and irrational jealousy.

Quatre hated him. Even if he had never said so out loud, his anger on the fencing strip had been enough to make that plain. His selfish anger when he could not win was just as foolish and just as effective as the lack of satisfaction Trowa had felt in his own heart to have soundly defeated his old friend. God help them if they had ever met like this, with sharpened swords and only the sadistic impartiality of Heaven as their witness. Whether Quatre loved him still despite it all, as Trowa still loved him, was beyond relevance. The guilt he no doubt nurtured was in vain. Where Quatre had not been so bold, Trowa had spoken the truth for him. For that, he did not deserve forgiveness. The coldest region of Hell was reserved for traitors.

Taking turns, they had dug a hole so deep, the only way left to go was further down. Trowa's punishment would come with the slow turning of the castle in the sky. A castle of hopes and dreams, it was said. And when he won, he would dash those virtues upon the bloody lines of the dreamtime over which he and Utena now danced. No one would have any choice but to despise Trowa then. The name Triton Bloom would be reviled.

As he only deserved.

The wheel of Fortune turns;
I go down, demeaned;
Another is raised up;
Far too high up
Sits the king at the summit—
Let him fear ruin!
For under the axis is written
Hecubam reginam.

The blood was pumping loud in Utena's ears, which already rang with the sounds of their swordplay. Triton kept her moving at a fast pace, pushing her back without pause with his barrage. All the while, his brows were calmly furrowed like a philosopher's. It shook her nerve. For his eyes alone were like a lion's, never wavering from hers down the lengths of their arms. He was relentless.

Fearing the edge of the platform might be approaching, she sidestepped a jab to her inside line, circling around his front. His rose appeared directly before her, unprotected; and she went for it.

But a split second too late. He caught her intention. With a growl of frustration, she increased the ferocity of her counterparry.

Trowa for his part felt an ease and grace come over his body, dictating his movements, that did not seem to arise from his own person. Did Quatre feel this way as he executed a croise with perfect form, hearing the applause? Or when the music took him when he was playing his violin, and allowed him for a few tenuous moments to reach perfection?

How did it feel for Hector to face his opponent in that man's own armor, with his own weapons—or for his opponent, for that matter, to have his own reflection turned against him? So Trowa wondered, as they moved together in a dangerous tango back toward the center of the platform. For just a moment, he thought he saw Quatre fighting in Utena's place. The reluctant contempt of a cornered animal that had been in his old friend's eyes Wednesday night he saw in hers now; the swing of her fourragere and the fringe of her epaulettes mirrored the desperation in Quatre's evasive excuses.

One minute mistake was all Trowa needed and the battle would be his. As their blades crossed, the tip of Utena's sword went through one of the gaps in the metal work of his handguard. Circling her sword with his own, Trowa expected a sharp flick would be enough to release her hold. But Utena held on, faltering a bit when the swords awkwardly disengaged, and stepped away from him.

"That's right. Never give up until the end," Trowa said when he could see that she was breathing hard. Hadn't someone told him that, when he made his vow to beat Quatre a summer ago?

Was he mocking her, or only deriding himself? It was almost impossible to tell. Utena gripped the hilt more tightly. She steeled herself for another onslaught, though each breath was not without some pain in this heavy air.

In her silence, Trowa smiled. "If fate is not inevitable, if it's only a fiction we write as we go alone, then one of us has to make it. No prince will help you." No knight, who smiled through his deception—looking the other way as he stabbed his own comrade-in-arms in the back—would raise a finger in his defense now.

"There is no prince."

And saying so, Trowa raised his sword toward Utena again, inviting her to attack. The knowledge that they were nearing the end was clear in Trowa's mind, just as the white rose on her breast was focused in his vision. That was his opponent, in so many ways, rather than Utena herself.

Something changed about her in that moment, however. He could sense it if not see it. Within each person lies a breaking point at which he finds that deeper function buried in the mind called second nature, when he transcends all the doubts that hold his conscious self back. That was how Utena seemed when she rushed at him. A light came into her blue eyes that was at once foreign to Trowa and nostalgic. She had something to protect, something to believe in.

Something he couldn't help resent. What made her think that would help her? His shining thing had never done a wit for him. What had felt so precious had turned out to be fool's gold. That was what he would prove to her. For that reason alone, he could not lose.

He could not be defeated again, after all this time. After all he had done for Quatre—and to him. Trowa bent his sword arm, ready to meet her blow.

It all happened so quickly.

When it was over, Utena crouched before him, one leg bent under her, her sword arm extended. Trowa remembered parrying her attack and thrusting straight at her rose. He should have hit the mark.

But his blade remained in the air over her shoulder, no white rose in sight. Instead, the point of Utena's blade dimpled his uniform above the naked stem still attached to his breast pocket. It was the mahogany-colored rose that sat face down on the white stone by his feet, every petal still attached within the severed calyx.

Relief washing over her, Utena slowly retracted her sword from his breast. "Triton—"

"No. That can't be it. . . . It can't just end like this."

There was an eerie tone to his words as he stared over Utena's head. His hand went to what remained of Himemiya's rose, and plucked it from the uniform. Like a carnation that had once been pitched aside, to make room for Easter lilies—

This was all wrong. The flower, this place, his failure . . .

"But it is the end!" Utena said, afraid her words might fall on deaf ears.

Trowa lowered his sword, but his grip only tightened around the handle. Utena flinched automatically, falling back on her heel, ready to leap into action if he decided he hadn't had enough.

He wouldn't attack her now, after it was over, would he? Was she wrong not to believe what he said of himself? Had he really betrayed those he cared about most? And if so, what was there to stop him from doing the same to her, someone he barely knew? "Your rose is gone, Triton," she said. "It's over. Those are the rules. Fair and square. You lost. The duel is over, you have to stop fighting now!"

Trowa took a step back, shame taking him suddenly in its burning grip. Over. Lost. . . .

And nothing had changed. Nothing. "This isn't what I deserve."

"It is!"

Utena hardly knew why she said what she did, she whose place it was not to judge, or whether it would only encourage Triton to raise his sword against her.

But it seemed right. She met his eyes defiantly. "Maybe things do turn out the way they're supposed to. You can't change everything. Some things you just have to accept as they are, whether they're right or not. That's just the way it goes. Why do you have to keep fighting it?"

He had nothing now. He felt that in the depths of his person: Quatre gone, along with any possibility of revenge for either of them. Trowa had lost to him after all, and it would change nothing. Nor could he make everything that still stood between them vanish. After all this, nothing had changed!

He showed no sign of having heard Utena. She yelled, in one last desperate try to snap him out of his fugue: "Why can't you just be happy!"

Trowa started.

He did not see the sincerity in her blue eyes, or the tears of exhaustion and relief only now beginning to form in them.

It was Utena's words that penetrated him, soaked into him like a light rain, their familiarity. . . .

No, Trowa knew better than to believe them. She might say anything to put him at ease, and save herself. No words could change the fact she had defeated him and, with that, stolen from him that one thing that had meant everything: a resolution. What he had told Utena was wrong.

He did have something to protect.

That memory of happiness was with Trowa even now. Even if it was far away, even if he could never relive it—even if accepting that proved more painful than burying the truth inside his soul—Ohtori could not take that from him now. At least he had his pain. At least he had that memory. They could not tell him it wasn't real, that it wasn't genuine.

It had been.

The evening sky was turning red, hitting everything with its burnishing light, the clouds not least among them.

But before his open eyes, Trowa saw nothing but blue. The heavens might be turning as ever before in their cold consistency, ignorant and uncaring of Man's machinations; but far below, the axis was crumbling on its foundation. With the patience of the continents, the white platform dipped imperceptibly under his feet, slowly sinking into the blue abyss. The wind swept through.

And with it, the scent of grass on the first warm day of spring filled Trowa's nostrils, and he heard someone calling his name faintly, as if from a hundred miles away.

So food gave me no pleasure, a voice whispered beside his ear, into the sky. Nor could I sleep—

"I made this for you . . . so you could spot my trouble from it . . ."

Utena heard him mumble something toward the sky, but the words made no sense. "What?" she started to ask him, thinking he had meant to tell her something important. The metallic clatter of his sabre dropping from his hand startled her back to herself.

"I made this for you," Trowa repeated to himself. However . . .

However . . . "I made a mistake."

Yes, he thought, I tried to—the gravest mistake of all—and I would have, if I could have—but I failed.

And for that he felt only relief.

It flooded him, and now Trowa realized just how tired he was. Tired of everything about this place, tired of fighting. To rest his eyes in sleep—God, he wanted that more than anything. More than a creature wants for food or water, he ached for that wonderful nothingness that waited for him behind his eyelids. The whole world was so heavy, even to lift an arm was so much effort. He would fall off the edge into the abyss if he gave in to it now, but . . .

He could not resist the pull of gravity, nor did he want to. Not any longer. Miles of atmosphere rushed by him. The white sun cooled the sweat on his brow. He could almost feel the soft grass at his back, catching him. . . .

It was such a nonchalant gesture, Utena thought nothing of it when he closed his eyes and breathed in deep, as one does when inhaling a scent too faint for anyone else to catch. It seemed like only a slackening of the limbs, and then he began to fall. In slow motion it seemed to happen. And, though only a few paces away, Utena could do nothing but watch, too caught off her guard to even reach out—

"Trowa!"

The name was foreign to her, but it resonated with so much feeling she knew who it was meant for instinctively. She turned, but all she saw was a white shape rushing by her.

A slender hand clasped tight around the gilded cuff of Trowa's uniform.

Such a simple touch, but up until this moment, it had seemed impossible that any contact between them should not be threaded through with violence and hate. Quatre's breath momentarily left him. And, having finally reached what he'd come for, his legs gave out beneath him. He managed somehow to pull Trowa to him as he collapsed to his knees in the center of the platform. All that mattered now was that he did not let go.

And Quatre didn't. Not even to check whether Trowa still had his rose. What did it matter anymore whether he'd won the Rose Bride or not, now that he had his old friend in his arms again? And not, this time, as enemies.

That was all that should have mattered when they'd met a week ago on the fencing strip. Quatre had been too blind, too proud not to realize it then. That's what he felt now with all his heart. Now that he had Trowa back, he could not understand how he had ever let go.

"I'm sorry," Quatre said. "I'm so sorry." The words rolled automatically from his lips, just as tears of relief began to form in his eyes.

Let them. There was something he had meant to say, something that must have run through his head a hundred times as he ran through the halls of this school, hoping to catch Trowa before this moment came, but Quatre could not remember it now. There were no other words to express what he felt. The rough cords of Trowa's epaulette scratched his cheek, but Quatre only pressed harder against it. It was only further proof that this was real.

And nothing was more important than that.

"I'm sorry," he repeated over again, whispering it into Trowa's ear. Not caring if Trowa responded, or forgave him. Not caring if Trowa was awake to hear him or not, or if he would remember any of this the next day. Nor did Quatre spare a thought for the three who watched them like silent statues, or pause to look up at the castle that turned steadily over their heads. As far as he was concerned, those things did not exist in this moment.

Quatre closed his eyes, a smile coming to his lips through his sweat and tears; and the truth he had realized on that cemetery bench four years ago returned to him with the same ferocity and sincerity of feeling.

After everything they'd been through together, it might have been true to say each hardly knew the other. But they knew each other's hearts.

That's how he could go on saying it: "I'm sorry." And this time, he knew exactly what he was apologizing for. His reasons were too many to count.

But Trowa, he knew, at least, would catch his meaning.

When Touga heard Winner call the Bloom boy by a different name, it struck him for the first time that perhaps the one who called himself Triton had not been as truthful as he seemed. But what more could one expect from a duelist? It piqued his suspicion, drew his focus unintentionally away from Tenjou.

But there was something about the way the two young men embraced, without any shame for those around them, that aroused his disgust. It wasn't that unnatural symmetry; on that front, he liked to think he did not judge. But how naïve they were, he thought, to fool themselves that something like what they had could last. They were already in high school. As far as Touga was concerned, it was time they grew up.

Then he realized, with a bit of surprise, that for some time he had been twisting the rose seal on his finger with his thumb, back and forth.

Anthy said, "I wonder why it is we always try to destroy the things we care about most."

Touga turned to her. It was not the first time she had said something so profound and accusing it seemed to come from somewhere beyond herself. What else lay hidden within the Rose Bride, waiting for the right force to break it through to the surface? "What do you mean, Anthy?"

She met his gaze. "But you know what I mean. Don't you, President Touga?"

When he turned back, silent, she elaborated.

"I suppose, when our feelings become so strong we no longer have control over them, it would be easier if we simply did nothing, and let nature take its course. Change occurs naturally, so we should let it, not resist it. Wouldn't you agree?"

"If we did, we'd only be avoiding responsibility," Touga rebutted.

Yet even as he said so, he felt he had entrapped himself in a Socratic web of his own design, and quickly dismissed any personal ramifications of that conclusion. Instinctively, he knew that was the easiest solution.

He did not see the smile of satisfaction that slowly bloomed on Anthy's lips.

•

"Did you hear, did you hear? The new transfer student mysteriously collapsed yesterday!"

"I heard! But what was it? Heat stroke? Tumors? Food poisoning?"

"Don't be melodramatic. The nurse said he was suffering from extreme exhaustion."

"Exhaustion? Is that all? That's not very romantic."

"What do you mean, 'is that all?' I said it was extreme, didn't I? It's nothing to mess around with!"

"Now who's being melodramatic, I wonder?"

When Juri entered their English class, she looked around despite herself. The other St. Gabriels students, Dorothy and Relena, were at their desks, gazing at a potted yellow rose that sat on the former's.

A strange feeling of disappointment arose from somewhere inside her when she didn't see his face among the male students, even though she knew she shouldn't have expected to. Despite everything, despite how irrational it seemed to her, there had been that strange hope. It beat within when Juri least expected it. Perhaps it was the way he reminded her of someone dear, even if that dear someone was only an old friend. Perhaps it was only that, she assured herself, and nothing more.

She caught Miki's eye as she made her way to her seat. "Quatre hasn't come to class?" Juri said as much to him as herself. "That's not like him." It was not Quatre she was thinking about, however.

"He's been at the nurse's office all morning," Miki told her with a knowing look.

And Juri nodded, having guessed something along those lines already. It was clear, and perhaps had always been, that Triton Bloom already had someone to fight for, long before he came to Ohtori Peers Academy. She recalled what Quatre had confessed to her in the music room, the window into his heart he had opened with his solo—

It made her question the depth of her own pride. If two people as stubborn as Quatre and Triton could have had, if only for a moment, what had been denied her. . . .

Was it possible nothing was ever too late? Was it possible Juri could give someone what Quatre had given his friend? Someone she had already met, long ago?

"He left us without a Romeo," she said.

Miki knew her well enough that it seemed needless to ask: "You want first dibs?"

A smile slowly spread across Juri's lips. With a tilt in his direction, she said softly, "I believe I've quite had my fill of that part."

A warm breeze rustled the waves of roses as the young man stood looking up at the façade of the enormous building. Regarding it as his opponent, neither victorious nor beaten, this time from the inside.

Polished shoes clicked on the brick, but this time they were not his.

"What is it?" Quatre asked gently as he came up beside him, hands in his pockets. "Having second thoughts?"

"No," Trowa answered. With one last glare at the administration building, the stylized roses in the stained glass windows far above their heads, he turned to his friend.

For the first time in a year—perhaps longer—he felt truly at ease. He had been trapped in a dream of his own weaving for far too long. Running in circles. Wearying of it. There was no use pretending the opposite anymore. Now that he had finally awakened, his slight smile showed his newfound peace. "I need to do this. If I'm going to stay here, it should be as Trowa Barton, not some no one who never existed. I can't pretend to be Triton Bloom anymore."

"They can't kick you out for applying under a false name. Can they?"

"I don't know." Trowa sighed, looking up again. "I suppose it's possible. Although I've had this strong feeling the whole time that they knew it was a false name to begin with." He turned to Quatre. "What will the girls say when they find out I've been deceiving them?"

"It'll all come back to them," Quatre said, knowing Trowa meant Dorothy and Relena. "Give them some credit. They'll understand, even if they are aristocrats." He flashed a reassuring smile that had nothing to do with their old schoolmates.

Sobering, he answered the unspoken question: "I know. I'm terrified too."

Trowa nodded silently.

Then it was Quatre's turn to face the building.

"If they do—" He straightened suddenly with resolve. "Send you away, that is, I'm going with you. Back to St. Gabriels, or wherever. It doesn't matter. I don't want to go through all this again."

It was a strange transformation that had come over the two of them. In their hearts they knew they had been changed permanently. They would never be able to return to the way things were before Ohtori entered their lives. It was a difficult concept to accept.

But in doing so, somehow they had found a chance to start anew. The awkwardness of acquaintance dictated their actions now. Each consoled himself that, with any luck, it would pass in time. Once they got to know each other better.

Trowa took a step toward him. An awkward moment passed before he finally decided only to place his hand on Quatre's arm. "You wouldn't really do that."

Quatre had not forgotten what he said before, about how much it meant to attend Ohtori, how great a privilege it was. How could he? Though it was difficult, he had to admit to himself Trowa was probably right.

But that couldn't change the way he felt. Even if they were torn apart and flung to opposite ends of the Earth, a part of his heart would always go with Trowa.

Anyone who walked by right then and saw them could have wondered if the rumors about them were true, but Quatre didn't care. He put one arm around his friend's shoulders and drew him close, and pressed his face into Trowa's shoulder. If only he could keep Trowa there with that alone, and damn what anyone else decided should be their fate. Quatre closed his eyes, gripped the fabric tighter. He didn't know the answer to that question. It wasn't his to answer. He only knew the last thing he wanted was to lose his friend again.

"Don't worry," Trowa whispered. "I'm not going anywhere."

Fin

Je m'en souviens comme si c'était hier.
Tour à tour nous soutenant,
nous disputant, riant de nous-mêmes.
Le souvenir de cette époque rayonnante
reste gravé dans mon coeur.
Je pense ne jamais pouvoir l'effacer, ni même l'oublier.
Courant après mon rêve, je reste enchaîné.
Cherchant à m'en libérer, mon rêve s'évanouit . . .

I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Helping each other in turn,
fighting each other, laughing at ourselves.
The memory of this radiant time
remains engraved in my heart.
I think I'll never be able to erase it, nor even forget it.
Running after my dream, I remain in chains.
Trying to free myself, my dream fades away . . .

—Gackt C., "Story"

Chapter notes: The interjected lyrics are from the second song in Carmina Burana, "Fortune plango vulnera/I bemoan the wounds of Fortune." "Hecubam reginam" is Queen Hecuba, famous for her reversal of fortunes.

Thank you for reading.