Well, this chapter was actually dedicated to my cousin because I just saw her over the weekend for the first time in like two years, and I overheard her saying that she wanted this fic to be updated. So thank her for the long-awaited update.

And, this chapter isn't as long or as funny as the others, but that's because it wasn't supposed to be. It's more of an explanation chapter.

Maria-Thanks for reviewing!

Stella-Same as above! Thanks for the review!

ILoveHPAndChocolate-I know…It takes me a while to update…but thanks for the review!

Sapphire Dragon-Thank you so much! Your reviews are so uplifting it makes me want to squee with delight! I'll try to have more confidence in myself…

Crimson Breeze-Welcome back! And thanks for the review!

LazerWulf-I really am honored that this was the first fic you read on this website and that you actually remembered. You're so loyal! Thanks for the review!

♥

♥

♥

While Serenity was riding the KaibaCorp limousine back home, Téa and Mai--or rather Anzu and Mai--sat contemplating in the brunette's bedroom.

"So," Mai said, breaking the silence, "Aunty Kijin found a cure." Although Mai didn't know it, she was scowling.

"Well, I think it was mom," Anzu responded. "Whoever gave me the message about the cure also gave me my wand, and mom's been the one whose had my wand all these years."

"True," Mai agreed, "but then who sent me that pop-up telling me not to bring Shizuka back?"

Anzu shrugged. "Why wouldn't anyone want Shizuka back? And who, outside our family, knows of our situation, anyway?"

Mai sighed. "I want my wand back, too."

"Mai!"

"What?" the blonde asked innocently.

"Try to stay on topic. I'm sure your wand will be returned to you soon enough, and hopefully we'll get our wings back, too," Anzu explained, her shoulders drooping. "So then we can be faeries again."

"But…" Mai looked up at her cousin slowly, her lavender eyes looking nervous for what she was about to say. "I kind of don't want to be a fairy again…"

Anzu looked up. "Well then, that makes two of us," she said as a small smile spread across her face.

"And," Mai started to say, "I don't want Shizuka to come back either!" Her voice had gotten stronger as she had finished the last phrase.

"I know!" Anzu exclaimed, clenching her fists at her side. "My mother would gush over her and completely forget that I even…" Anzu stopped as her eye caught sight of something sparkly in the corner of her room.

"What is it?" Mai asked, following Anzu's gaze. She stared at the sparkles, that were literally appearing out of thin air, for a moment. As a figure started appearing out of the sparkles, Mai and Anzu stared at each other nervously.

"You think it's her?" Mai whispered. Anzu didn't answer. Instead, she simply stared at the tornado of sparkles that was becoming more and more visible as the seconds passed.

"You?" Anzu asked.

"Aunty Kijin?" Mai asked at the same time as Anzu.

An adult fairy finally walked out of the vortex of sparkles. Anzu and Mai stared at her in shock, but the adult fairy didn't seem the least bit disheveled.

"In the flesh," she responded, looking around the bedroom. Her eyes locked on Mai's.

"I have something for you," she explained, pulling a purple wand out from a bag attached to her side and throwing it at Mai.

"My wand!" Mai exclaimed as she excitedly grabbed the object.

"Anzu," Kijin said, acknowledging her daughter's presence. But she only stared at her daughter for a moment before she started staring around the room again.

Anzu didn't know what to say. After years of never seeing her mother, one would think that Anzu would be excited to see Kijin, but she wasn't. All she could think about was what her mother had called her. She had trouble answering to "Anzu" for she had been Téa for so long, and as she looked to Kijin, she wondered how she was going to call the fairy standing before her "mother".

Anzu shook her head and stared at her biological mother, opening her mouth to say something. However, before Anzu could say anything, Kijin shot a bolt of magic with her wand at Anzu's bedroom door. A magical lock appeared on the already locked door to ensure the privacy.

"Listen," Kijin said quickly, "we have to talk because we are currently running out of time."

♥

Serenity thanked the limo driver as she stepped out of the vehicle and onto the steps of her small house.

It was then that she noticed the big, red bug, which had been crawling all over her when she was in Kaiba's closet, sitting quite comfortably upon one of the concrete steps.

"This time," she told the bug through gritted teeth, "I'm gonna kill you." But just as she was about to swat at the bug, it flew up into the air and went straight at her eyes.

"Eww!" she screamed, shoving the bug away with one of her arms covering her face. After a few seconds, she looked up and noticed that there was no bug anywhere.

However, there were two little kids standing right next to her house's stoop, looking at her strangely.

"Lady, why were you hitting the air?" one of the kids asked.

"Did you see where that bug went?" she asked.

"We didn't see no bug, lady," the kid responded.

"Are you kidding me? It was HUGE!"

The little kid who had answered her whispered--although it was so loud the whole neighborhood could have heard it--to his friend, "Is she crazy?"

"No! And get away from my house if you think I'm so crazy!" And the little kid mumbled about how she really was in denial because she was so crazy as he walked away with his friend. Serenity shook her head and thought about the day she had had.

First, I walk into the wrong classroom during school this morning, she thought as she turned the key and the door opened, but that seems like nothing compared to my meeting with Isis and then ending up in Kaiba's closet and looking like a total stalker-ish fan girl.

Serenity knew that she would probably end up jinxing herself, but she couldn't help but think: Could this day get any stranger?

She climbed up the stairs, noticing that Joey was indeed not in the house, just like Kaiba had promised. She practically shoved open the door to her room and toppled onto her bed as she swung off her backpack, which felt much heavier than usual. Serenity sat herself up again and brought her backpack close enough to open it. She sighed as the saw the Millennium Rod Isis had given her taking up a great deal of space in her backpack.

She took the heavy thing out of her backpack and stared at it for a moment. She traced her fingers along the metal, examining every groove and indent of the item.

Isis said that this thing chose me as its keeper. But why? I hardly know anything about the ancient Egypt stuff that Yugi and the others are involved with. And from what Joey told me, there's got to be something special about me for me to have one of these things.

But as Serenity thought this, the "eye" of the Rod started to glow with a beautiful golden light. Serenity nearly dropped the thing on the floor when she saw it start to glow.

"There's nothing special about me! Stop glowing!"

♥

"Shizuka is a very special girl," Kijin explained, pacing the room.

"Yes, we remember you telling us that she was very powerful at the orphanage all those years ago," Anzu reminded, sounding bored although she should have been excited at the thought of having her cousin back.

Mai, who still busy making magical sparks come out of her wand, mumbled a distracted, "..Yeah…"

Kijin shook her head. "I don't think you understand how much magical potential there is within her. Over the past few years I've been doing research on young faeries. It turns out that any fairy that was Serenity's age when the "accident"-"

"You mean how Shizuka turned herself into a human?" Mai asked innocently, causing Kijin to frown at Mai.

"Yes, Mai, that's what I mean. Anyway, Shizuka was only eight years old when she did that to herself, and that night, there was a full moon-"

"Oh yeah! The full moon was able to enhance her magic and make her spell permanent!" Anzu exclaimed. "And doesn't the full moon only affect the strongest faeries' magical powers?"

"Yes," Kijin said bitterly (she did not appreciate constantly being interrupted when she was trying to explain something as extremely important as this.) "But when I was doing research, I discovered something…Even when the strongest of the strongest faeries are only eight years old, the full moon won't affect them until they reach their adolescence."

"So?" Mai asked. "I don't see how that makes Shizuka exceptionally strong."

"Neither do I," Anzu added.

Kijin shook her head again. "Don't you see? The very fact that the moon was able to enhance her magical powers at such young age is clear evidence of the fact that the power within her is brilliant."

"Mother," Anzu ignored how weird it was to call Kijin 'mother', "you've always thought that Shizuka was brilliant. There's nothing new about that-"

"Anzu!" Kijin's voice was sharp and the two girls could tell she was restraining tears. "In a few weeks' time, there's going to a full moon here on earth. But it won't be just any full moon. This full moon will mark the ninth anniversary of her being a human…and nine years would mean that most of her life was spent as a human. When that night comes and the moon touches Shizuka's skin, her body will make the decision whether or not it stays human or turns back into a fairy…"

Mai and Anzu's mouths were hanging open. "…umm…I guess the logical thing to ask would be how do we make sure that her body chooses to become a fairy again?" Mai asked at length.

Kijin smirked. "Simple. We give her wand back to her, and, if she's as powerful as I think she is, she'll be able to use her wand to keep the magic from leaving her body forever…"

"And once she does that," Anzu started to say as a light flashed in her eyes, "once her wand keeps the magic sustained in her body, the magic in her body will become alive again and will return her to her natural magical form, which is a fairy!"

"Exactly."

"Wait…I thought there was no magic in Shizuka's body since she was a human. How can it just come back if we give her wand back to her?" Mai asked, confused.

"The magic never really left Shizuka's body; it simply has been dormant ever since she cast that spell upon herself."

"Oh," Mai said quietly. "So when do you want us to tell her that she's a fairy, Aunty Kijin?"

"Well, you can't tell her that she's a fairy since that would be a lie. Tell her that she was born a fairy and I want you to do that as soon as possible!"

"So," Anzu said quietly, "if she doesn't sustain the magic within her on the night of the full moon, she'll stay a human, right?"

Kijin nodded slowly. "As we speak, the past--the real past--is coming back. Everyone who was there the night that Shizuka turned herself into a human had forgotten all about Shizuka since I used my magic to make it look like she had never come to that orphanage and had been born a human. But now, as the full moon night approaches, everyone who was at the orphanage will slowly start to remember her and the events of that night."

"The Kaiba brothers," Anzu and Mai said quietly.

"Them, and of course, Shizuka." An awkward silence fell upon the room.

"When do we get our wings back?" Mai asked the fairy.

Kijin laughed. "When Shizuka turns back into a fairy, obviously!"

Anzu and Mai moaned.

Even though Anzu and Mai did not want to leave their human lives, they still wanted to have their wings back, even if it was only for a little while, just so they could remember what it was like to be a fairy.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Kijin asked excitedly. "Go tell Shizuka!"

♥

"Stop glowing!" Serenity ordered as she stuffed the rod into a shoebox that was already within another, bigger shoebox. Even through the boxes, she could clearly see the glow emanate through. She stuck her tongue at the object.

"You can glow all you want but it won't change the fact that I'm putting you under my bed!"

She took the item and shoved it under her bed. She had no use for it. For all she cared someone could've run off with it to Southern Africa; as long as she wouldn't see it again.

But little did she know that that was not the plan the item had in mind…

But even from under her bed, she could still see some of the Rod's glow. She wondered if the item was like a baby…Maybe it was hungry and glowing was its way of crying…But what did a rod eat?

Serenity shook her head. "Metal objects do not get hungry," she told herself. Nevertheless, she lifted the covers off of her bed and stared at the shoebox. "Do they?"

Moments later, she heard Joey come though the door. She ran downstairs and greeted her brother.

"Hey!" she cried as she ran up to him and gave him a hug. "You wouldn't believe the day I had!"

"I hate Kaiba," was the only response she received.

Serenity hugged her brother, "I know you do," she said, smiling.

Joey pulled back from the hug and looked at her. Something didn't feel right in Joey's mind. As Joey thought more and more about it, Serenity looked at her brother carefully.

"Everything alright, big brother?"

"Yeah…"

Joey shook his head again, but he couldn't help but feel like there was something missing from his brain.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Joey went to see who it was and was slightly startled to see Mai and Téa standing there, frowning.

"Hey guys. Everything alright?" he asked.

"Maybe," Mai replied. "Is Serenity home?"

♥

Seto Kaiba sat in the pink bedroom that he and Serenity had been in little over an hour ago. He had work to do, and he would scold himself later for not finishing it, but all he found interesting was staring at the pink and green dress that was in the center of the room's stage.

One certain day at the orphanage kept popping back into his mind, but he couldn't figure out why.

"There was a fairy," he said to himself quietly. Then he shook his head and ran a finger through his hair. Where did that come from?

He had an abnormal day, he admitted. He shut off the lights in the room and walked out of it.

♥

♥

♥

Preview:

"This isn't the mall," Serenity pointed out.

"Well that was just an excuse to get you away from Joseph long enough," Mai explained.

"Long enough for what?"

"To talk to you," Téa chimed in.

"About…?"

"About magic!"

-Celestial Night