The trick is in the wrist, Utena finds.

The dribbling of a basketball draws its strength from the shoulder and its spring from the wrist. Power is nothing without flexability.

A sword as well, of course, the sheer strength not so important as knowing where to strike - and being able to hit it. She has removed so many roses now and strength has nothing to do with it. The flick of a wrist, the flexibility to become someting - something that doesn't matter.

Fingers on a piano keyboard. Wrists curved but firm. But only if you want to play. You can play if you want to, but you don't have to. You can do what you want, you know.

Opening a coffin from the outside needs the wrists. Pure strength might do it, it might, but it needs the wrists to work. A natural lever. It's less of a pull than a pry, she finds.

Of course, from the inside of a coffin, the wrists don't matter at all.

In the ancient days, when they crucified the Christians in Japan, they nailed them through their wrists. It's odd the things that come to mind at moments like this, history classes flashing past her eyes in gruesome images. Nails through the wrists, slowly sapping their life.

The wrists - the wrists are needed to hold ON, she finds, it's not her strength, her strength isn't the problem at all, but her wrist's twisted, her wrist doesn't have the spring to pull her back up, pull her up, Goddamn it, she has to do this, pull her up, pull her back, pull her *home*-

She feels it give way before it happens.