Five Crossover Encounters During Anthy's Search - Part Four
The vampire lunges toward her. "Water! Do the water thing now," the blonde girl yells, and Anthy dodges, pulling the rubber stopper out of the bottle with her teeth and swinging toward the fanged middle-aged man trying to take a piece out of her neck. He hisses when the water hits him, skin sizzling. The blonde stakes him while he's still disoriented and he collapses into dust. Convenient, Anthy thinks. Having to hide the body would hardly make the job more pleasant.
"Hey, not bad." The other girl looks at Anthy with a newfound respect. "Been doing this long?"
"No, actually," Anthy says. "This would be my first time."
"Huh. I haven't died lately, and Faith hasn't died lately, so you're not a new Slayer or anything," the girl muses, directed more at herself than at Anthy. "You're not evil, are you?"
"Not lately," Anthy says dryly.
"Good enough for me. I'm Buffy Summers, by the way."
"Himemiya Anthy."
Buffy looks skeptical. "You don't look Japanese. More Indian, I'd say. As in from India; not the US."
It's funny how few people comment on that, considering it should be obvious. Then again, most people let Anthy slide under the radar, no matter how incongruous she might look or act.
This Buffy Summers, however, is different. She continues: "Come to think of it, I don't usually up and tell people about the Slayer thing. Are you putting some kind of mind control whammy on me? Cause that is so not on."
"I'm not trying to control you," Anthy says. "I'm... honestly not sure why you're being so forthcoming with me. Certain people just react to me in certain ways, though I can't always predict it."
"Right. So, what are-"
"I'm a witch," Anthy interjects, not sure how Buffy would react if told the more complicated answer.
Buffy shrugs. "That's cool, I guess. My best friend's a witch." There's a definite fondness in her eyes.
"It must be nice."
"Oh, definitely. Will's - Willow's one of the smartest people I know, and with the general awesomeness. But hey, I'm biased."
"I know the feeling. There's someone like that..." Anthy hesitates, but in some odd way, she feels like she owes honesty to this girl. "When I first heard about you, I thought you might be her. I realize that probably makes little to no sense, but names can be changed and she's an awful lot like you, in some ways."
"Sorry," Buffy says. "I'm pretty sure I'd know if we'd met before, or if I was the person you're looking for. But I'm not."
"No, you're not," Anthy agrees. "You're just you."
Buffy quirks an eyebrow. "Yay me?"
Another vampire chooses that moment to make its appearance.
Anthy should have expected to make mistakes like this, sometimes. But to believe she'd come so close to finding Utena, and then so meet someone so close to her in personality... In some ways hope is more treacherous than despair. There are times she feels like she's getting close, and other times she feels she must be delusional and her journey has no end in sight.
One more step, one more world. She moves onward.
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