>Utena really needs to find a shorter way to do the "kiss the sword"
>thing, though. Or even the heart sword thing. What if she needs to go
>to that level and Anthy's not around?In this instance, both the drawing of the Heart of the Rose and the Priestess's Blade Blessing were theatre as much as anything else - showin' off a bit for the crowd. Utena owns more than one sword for precisely that reason: so that if she needs to fight and Anthy isn't right there handy, she has other options. And while the Blade Blessing is a powerful spell, it's not Utena's only route to a "power-up", either. We've seen her tap into her full power without it before (in her duel with Akio in Knights III, most prominently).
--G.
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