#csa warning

Touga, sprawled on the white couch across from him, looks up. ‘Unfortunate.’

I love the way people talk in Utena and I had so much fun imitating it. No one says what they mean (except maybe Utena herself) and everyone is performing for the person they’re talking to. Touga says one word and he’s simultaneously trying to put himself on Akio’s level, imitating the way he talks and being careful not to ask questions or offer solutions in a way that would make him seem subordinate, and not committing himself because he knows Akio is dangerous and doesn’t know what he wants by bringing this up.

‘Do you still desire the power of Dios?’

‘Of course,’ Touga says easily, eyes narrowed under his lashes. ‘But that’s for Duelists to win.’

‘And for the Rose Bride to embody.’ Akio takes a drink, the brilliant red of the wine vanishing into his mouth.

A metaphor! And not a very subtle one although one that requires knowledge of Utena. Red is the colour of the Rose Bride and also the colour of Touga, so this links them immediately, and also links them as things that can be consumed by Akio. Which is what Touga has in common with Anthy through SKU. He would like to position himself as Akio’s heir, and to that end he treats the people he does have power over terribly, but to Akio he’s more often filling the exact same role as Anthy - carrying out manipulations on Akio’s behalf and letting Akio have sex with him.

‘But never possess.’ Touga holds his languid pose despite the tension running through him. ‘Isn’t that true?’

Akio stands up and comes to kneel by Touga, one hand toying with his hair while Akio’s voice rings, soft and confiding, in his ear. ‘The purpose of the Duels is to forge a sword worthy of a Prince inside one of the Duelists. If I win the Duel called Revolution, I take it and open the way. If not…’

‘…then they can.’ Or whoever they give the sword to. Whoever they would hand their heart to at their moment of triumph. ‘Are you using the same Duelists again?’

The reminder that Touga has people he does have power over comes as an inducement. With pawns, Touga is arrogant enough to think he can fight Akio on his own grounds, even though Akio is the one inviting him into that contest himself.

‘Your sister and the vice-president were promising candidates.’

Touga’s heart is thrumming in his throat. They’d want him, or want to save him if he seemed too far under Akio’s power. That had been Utena’s strength, hadn’t it, that she’d done it for Himemiya? Her weakness too, since Himemiya had been Akio’s, but Touga… ‘You don’t trust me this much.’

Being able to use people’s love for him is something Touga feels comfortable in his ability to do, it’s how he’s always managed. The fact that Himemiya got free in the end, by raising a duellist who loved her to power, feels like something he could replicate. He doesn’t understand any of what was really between Utena and Anthy, of course, but how could he? What’s confusing him is that Akio shouldn’t be willing to take that risk again on someone he has far less reason to trust than Anthy.

To some extent this is also, well. Touga doesn’t exactly deserve this, but he went into it thinking he could hurt and manipulate others as a result, only to be the one hurt and manipulated himself. He’s an abuser as well as the one abused.

‘A gamble,’ Akio murmurs. ‘For both of us.’

‘For one round of Duels,’ Touga says. ‘For one year.’

‘Of course. I won’t ask for your whole life.’ A hand strokes Touga’s hair in a parody of comfort. ‘One year. Agreed?’

And Touga’s smart enough to limit it but doesn’t at all understand just what he’s agreeing to, nor how easily Akio could break him.

Akio constantly fondling Touga while they have this conversation is based on their season 3 conversations which largely happened while they were in bed together. It’s… ah…. It’s hard to put what it means into words. The dynamic where Akio reminds Touga that Touga is here for his pleasure, but also, especially in light of him encouraging Touga to overreach himself here, reminding Touga that he desires him, when being desired is something Touga associates with the only form of power he’s used to having. And there’s Touga having been abused as a child, as well, that this automatically puts Akio in a “fatherly” position, to Touga’s mind, both reinforcing Touga’s desire to be his heir, to be him and be the one who has that power, and reminding Touga that he doesn’t yet.

Touga closes his eyes, mind ticking over plans. Nanami or Saionji? Neither of them are really Princes, but they’ll fight if pushed. Maybe it will be enough? It’s a better chance than he has alone, isn’t it? If Akio thought he could still be shaped into a Prince he would want him as a Duelist, and Akio knows this game better than anyone. ‘Agreed.’

In the midst of all that arrogance, self-doubt. Touga’s ability to see himself as a Prince was damaged at the end of season 1 and then maybe destroyed for good when he tried, in what he thought was sincerity, to be a Prince for Utena and failed completely.

Akio’s hand comes to rest on his chest and Touga feels the heat of his sword rising to the surface even as he sees the light glowing between dark fingers. He flinches reflexively from the intimacy, dimming the glow for a moment, but forces himself to relax. He wants this. He chose this. He just has to let it happen.

The connotations of Touga reacting to this like he does to sex he doesn't want are, of course, deliberate.

Akio’s hand closes around the hilt and he pulls… the sword of Dios, almost. It’s not quite the same shape as it was, a little longer and broader, the hilt covered with curliques of gold and lacking its jewels. ‘Close enough,’ Akio says, and thrusts it back into Touga’s chest.

I opted to be very ambigous about the sword of Dios here. My theory is that, in canon, it’s actually Anthy’s own sword, not Akio’s (which he doesn’t feel like risking) but she’s been convinced it belongs to her brother and so it shows as his. However, this isn’t the only theory that makes sense, she could also have his sword inside her because that’s what she “took” when she sealed him away from the world. So although this fic was written on the premise that Anthy’s own sword was used and that Touga’s sword (which already has a more malleable form than other swords, appearing quite differently in the Black Rose arc and in the final arc) has been moulded into the sword of Dios now it’s never actually textual.

It hurts. There’s no blood, just a flash of light and gone, but it hurts like he’s been run through, leaving him arched off the couch and panting.

Yes, yes I was leaning into the sexual imagery here. “Arched off the couch and panting.” This fic leans fully into imitating Utena's tendency to have things that are sexual in a wrong and bad way but not actually sex, especially any time Akio does anything.

The blood comes a second later with another searing pain that skewers his leg, hamstringing him, blood staining the white couch below him. Another runs through his abdomen, something pierces his hand, and after that it hurts too much to register individual pains. The part of being the Rose Bride that Touga had no idea about strikes him only when the deal has already been made.

‘Shhhhhh.’ Akio kisses him, pleasure warm and welcome in a sea of pain. ‘Keep breathing, it will be all right.’

Touga whines and clutches at Akio, then forces himself to lucidity. ‘You… did this.’

The insidiousness of Akio, that he can seem like comfort in the midst of pain that he set out to cause. Touga knows it, of course, has imitated it (especially with Nanami, who he upsets and consoles as he pleases) but still it’s hard to resist when the pain is bad enough.

‘The world did this.’ Akio sounds infinitely sad, noble and regretful. ‘The Rose Bride suffers in place of the Prince.’ Then he gently pulls free of Touga’s grip and walks away, his feet ringing on the floor.

I like this. Akio sounding all noble and princely, maybe even believing it himself, even as he acts in an objectively cruel way, simply walking away and leaving Touga to suffer.

Touga closes his eyes and breathes, forcing himself to take control over his pain-wracked body. Go limp, pain is easier to bear if you don’t fight it. Accept it, since it’s too late to prevent it. Step outside your body, balance there, this will be too much if you feel it completely. Old lessons. Reasons, seen too late, why the Rose Bride had to be him. But he can do this.

When he opens his eyes the pain is still there, but the blood is gone.