After everything happened, I somehow managed to make it all the way to summer vacation without having anything strange happen to me. This did not include the strange things that had already established themselves as part of my life, like the fact that my boyfriend wasn't human and could make himself look like anyone/thing he wanted, though I could almost always see through his illusions with a little concentration. Or Yami and Hikari... When I said nothing strange happened to me, I meant nothing attacked the city, I never had to transform, and not once did someone try to kill me. It felt kinda nice.

I was in a very good mood on the last day of school. First, Moriko was nowhere to be found...which meant she wasn't trying to win me away from her brother and wasn't hanging off of my arm. I think she was temporarily being put with another class, so that our homeroom teacher could try and regain some order for the last day... Or maybe Kaze had just asked her to stay out of the way. I couldn't be sure.

Second, summer vacation was starting...which meant that the school year was over, and I was going to get a nice, long break from school. It was my first long summer vacation, and to say I was looking forward to it would be much like saying Moriko thought I was cute...so much of an understatement that it was barely accurate. Not only was there no school, but that would be three glorious months without having every other person in the school asking me what happened to Scott. And three months to spend the whole day with Kaze, instead of just the few minutes here and there between classes and the lunch period that always seemed way too short.

Third...nothing weird had happened. As far as I could tell, the only evil that I had been destined to fight was Scott...and he was gone. So that let me off the hook. I wouldn't have to transform anymore...I wouldn't have to fight. I wouldn't even have to think about having to lug those breasts around again. And I got to keep the few magical aftereffects that had come with my first transformation, like the ability to see through Kaze and Moriko's illusions. And, most of all, Yami and Hikari were still there. They had come with the fuku, and I had been more than a little afraid that they would go away when the evil did...leaving me without two of my closest friends.

When I left the house that morning of the last day of school, I didn't think anything could dampen my mood. Certainly not just having to go to school. Even if people bothered me about where Scott was or gave me strange looks for being openly homosexual in the school, that couldn't crush my mood. I was too happy. And I almost made it the whole few hours that I was there, too.

But then we had an unannounced whole school assembly, right before they let us out. Not even the teachers seemed to know about it, because they looked just as surprised when the principal got on the intercom and ordered all students and faculty to proceed to the gym for a special program as we were. But we all went, since we had nothing else to do for the last hour of the day, and they couldn't let us out until the offical time.

I think maybe ten people at most realized what this special assembly was going to be about before anyone started talking, out of the whole school, and that included the principal, who I knew already knew. I know I knew the moment I entered the room, and I'm sure that Kaze and Moriko did as well. Besides us, I suspected that there might be five or so other "normal" people in the school with enough magic to sense something strange about the three women standing in the middle of the gym, or maybe even as much as I sensed, to know that they were magical girls, just like myself. Though it probably would be more accurate to call them magical women, as none of them looked like they had been young enough to be called magical girls since around when I was born. I just knew that they were the same kind of people as I was, and that gave me the sinking feeling that I was going to end up getting pulled into something new that involved actually using the powers I had.

Once everyone was seated, the principal stepped to the middle of the gym, where the magical women were standing, and held his microphone up to his mouth. "Thank you everyone for getting here so quickly," he said. "Now, I know that it's the last day of school, and I'm sure none of you want to be here right now, but please remember that we do have over a half hour left of the school day. Once the final bell rings you may all leave, carefully, but until then, these women have something important to tell you."

I was not paying attention while he spoke. He wasn't magical, and I didn't get any sort of feeling that told me that he would be a magical problem, so I chose to spend my time looking around the gym, trying to find Kaze, while he spoke. We were seated by homeroom, which meant that Kaze would probably be somewhere in the senior section, not that I knew where his homeroom would be seated. I finally found him just as the principal was finishing up, and I realized then that he was looking for me as well, and had found me at exactly the same time, as our eyes me, and he smiled at me from across the student-filled bleachers.

He had Moriko with him, which explained where she had been all morning. She looked less than happy to be there, especially when she noticed that Kaze had found me in the crowd. She was supposed to be with our homeroom, so she couldn't have been very pleased with her brother when it turned out she wasn't. Kaze just smiled at her as she whispered something in his ear, and then turned back to me one last time, and waved. He made his human illusion, the one that everyone at school could see, stay still, so I was more or less the only one who saw him do it. And just about then the middle woman decided to speak up, so both Kaze and I turned our attention to the middle of the room.

"Ah, good morning everyone," she said, in passable, but heavily accented, English. It wasn't until then that I realized she was Japanese, not that that should have surprised me. As far as I knew, I was the only magical girl in America. Still, she didn't look Japanese. She was blonde, and tall...and just not very Asian looking at all. But then, I couldn't think of any magical girl in any anime that actually looked like a Japanese girl, and I certainly didn't look like a Japanese girl, something which I was very glad of.