The Future of Magic

by Bakanasakusha

Magic is wonderful, magic can do anything. But with Takeo and Sae, it tends not to do quite what they meant. Can their growing relationship (and the greater Tokyo metropolitan area) survive the strains it brings?

5. The Future of Magic

The Future of Magic

Chapter 5. The Beginning, The End, and The Future of Magic

I admit, I can be a bit much at times. While I try to keep my obsessions under control, I'm not always successful, which I know can make things uncomfortable for the people around me. So, yes, I can understand needing a break from me now and then. But ... but .. needing a week or more away from me, when we had been going together for barely two weeks?

OK, sure, the last two weeks had been over-the-top even by my usual standards. And Sae wasn't blaming me for any of it, but rather the situation we were in. But I still had to wonder, was this the way things were fated to be in the future? That no sooner would we get together than we'd have to part again?

The one good thing about the current situation, though, was that it kept me from dwelling on those morose thoughts. I was way too busy shooting scenes for the show, which had been retitled "White Magic, Black Magic, Love Magic."

They had come up with some new convoluted plot that I could not begin to explain, even if I were allowed to. Suffice it to say that it involved ancient curses and demonic possession and whatnot.

Ryoko and I first had to shoot the scenes that were supposed to take place in the mansion. In the new storyline, we weren't there for a sex change, so to speak, but were instead exploring an abandoned house, where we were seeking, ok, that part I can't tell you. But anyway, we encounter this apparition and seemingly defeat it, only I get slightly wounded in the process. Which is of course how the demon gets a foothold in me, so that later ...

Anyway, all that, as nonsensical as it sounds, was still a lot of fun. The "reality" part was that we devised our own spells for fighting the "demon," so Ryoko and I had a blast competing to come up with showier and showier effects. We took both sides, of course, alternating who generated the "demon's" magic and who generated ours. It was based on this comedy act that she and I had put together – yes, that's the stupid thing she had tested me for to see if I was "worthy," back when we first met – but we amped it up (and took out the jokes) to be even more spectacular.

We did slip up and damage the set a couple of times (it was shot on a sound stage, as with the Yamashitas out, we couldn't do any more at the mansion), but they assured us it was no big deal. Ryoko pressed them on this, and they reluctantly agreed this meant the repair cost wasn't coming out of our paychecks.

So all that was fine, but the greenscreen stuff was a different matter. If you're keeping count, you know that up until that point, I had only kissed Ryoko twice – once mostly under magical compulsion, and the second time that very morning, partly by accident and when we couldn't even see anything. And sure, she's given me the occasional peck on the cheek, but my point is, we didn't have much of a kissing history.

But now, to reenact the dramatic mansion escape, I had to kiss Ryoko again. And again. And again. The director kept saying we needed "fireworks to match the battle in the mansion," that I wasn't being nearly passionate enough. Of course, at that moment, passion was the exact opposite of what I was feeling.

Ryoko noticed, of course. She cornered me after yet another failed take and said, "C'mon, Takeo. I know it's rough when your girlfriend walks out on you like that –"

"She didn't walk out on me, she only ... uh ..."

"She only walked and is out."

"Uh, yeah, but only until this is all over."

"Sure, sure, but until this is over ..." She pressed her body against mine and looked up at me with a pleading expression. "Until then, let me be your girlfriend. I mean, you like me, right?"

"Uh, well, of course, but ..."

"And ..." Here she grabbed hold of my tie (they had dressed me in a school uniform too – somewhat disturbingly, their costume department seemed to have copies of uniforms from every school in Tokyo) and pulled me down until my face was only inches from hers. "And ... you want me to get the money, right?"

"Uhhh, sure, I guess ..."

"Don't forget, that means you get money, too. And if you want to keep taking Sae to those expensive places, you sure could use that, couldn't you?"

Somehow, that had never occurred to me. "Oh, yeah, I could."

"So it's settled, then." She ran a finger down my cheek and across my lips. "Ready to pucker up, big boy?"

I looked down at her and realized I was. Sure, Ryoko could be pushy and annoying, but when I thought about it, all she had ever done was to try to help me, to develop my magic, to progress in my relationship with Sae, to fix the problems that relationship created. And really, I did like her and wanted the best for her, and ... Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

We were kissing. Kissing like we never had before. All my conflicted emotions about Ryoko, about Sae, about the recent events, about the situation we were in, somehow got mixed up together and overwhelmed by the reality of us there, together. The passion that had been absent since, well, really, since I had gotten over Mayumi's hypno-perfume, came roaring back. The studio had been rather cold, but the warmth that rose up around us quickly dispelled that. Again, I was adrift at sea, caught up in a wave of feeling, being washed away, but no, no, I had to get back, to go to ... where? Oh yeah, a part of my brain said, we have to go now, so c'mon, one, two, three steps ...

... And we were in the bedroom of a very surprised Sae. She was lying on her bed, working on that diary that I had inadvertently peeked in while I was her. Quickly closing it, she said, "What? Takeo – Ryoko – what are you doing here?"

"Oh, uh, hi, Sae," I replied awkwardly. "Yeah, we were reenacting our escape from the mansion and I, uh, I guess I unconsciously figured that meant we had to return here."

Sae slipped the diary under her pillow and stood up next to me. "So, you're saying you couldn't bear to be away from me, even for one day?" she said, with a smile.

"Ha, ha, yeah, I guess so," I replied.

We stood there looking at each other until Ryoko said, "Sorry to break up your little reunion, but the director's going to wonder what happened to us pretty soon."

I was startled by her voice – somehow, as soon as I saw Sae, I had forgotten completely that Ryoko existed. So much for the incredible passion I had felt moments before.

Of course, that created a problem – how exactly were we supposed to get back? I couldn't kiss Ryoko in front of Sae, let alone summon any sort of passion in doing so. And taking the subway meant we'd be AWOL for almost an hour, hardly the impression to make on our first day of shooting.

Sae fortunately had the answer. "You need me to send you back, don't you?"

"Um, I guess so ..."

"Oh, that's ok. I mean, I took advantage of you to come here, so it's only fair for you to use me to go back." She turned to Ryoko. "Ryoko, could you please close your eyes? I can't do this while anyone else is watching."

"Wait," Ryoko said, "you're not gonna grab his dick, are ya?"

"What!? No, of course not! It's just the – just the usual."

"All right, fine, fine. I'm not gonna stand in the way of you two lovebirds. Just hurry it up, ok?" She grabbed my arm but turned away so she was facing the wall.

Not ideal romantic circumstances, but it would have to do. And indeed it did, because as soon as I looked down at Sae's sweet face, I forgot all else. We had only been apart a couple of hours or so, but somehow it felt like a reunion between long-separated lovers. We kissed and, very quickly, the warmth rose up around us and I knew it was time to go.

Except I didn't want to. Not if it meant leaving Sae. I held onto her as long as I could, but finally, Sae pulled back from the kiss and said, "They're waiting for you, Takeo. You really need to go." She smiled and added, "Don't worry. Like I said, I'll be waiting for you when this is over." With that, she gave me a little push, and I stumbled out of her room ...

... And into the dressing room at the television studio. The women's dressing room, that is. Mayumi was sitting there, fortunately already mostly clothed. Quickly finishing covering up, she said, "My, my, Takeo. You really do want to see me naked, don't you?"

"No, no! Sorry, sorry, I seem to be having a lot of trouble with my aim today."

"Uh-huh. Oh, don't worry. I think it's sweet the way you can't bear to be apart from me for very long."

Ryoko snorted. "Sorry, Takeo, but I'm gonna haveta break up your reunion with your backup girlfriend, too. We gotta get back to the studio."

In the studio, the director and crew were poking around in all the corners. "Did you lose something?" Ryoko asked, a note of amusement in her voice. "Can we help you find it?"

He whirled around and stared at us, astonished. "How the – where were you? We looked everywhere!"

"Oh, here and there," Ryoko said. "Mostly there, I'll admit."

He shook his head. "I've seen some magic tricks in my time, but you guys are something else. The footage of you disappearing in front of the mansion, yeah, sure, with all those explosions going on, it was easy to cover up how you did it. But this time ... this time, it was like you vanished for real!"

"Thanks," I said. "That's one of our most difficult tricks. We can't always pull it off that well, so ..."

"So you're saying I can't ask for another take?"

"A-another take?" I shuddered. Go through all that again? "That wasn't good enough?"

"Ah, no, it was fine. I usually like to do a second take, just in case. But we're running short on time, and there are a few transition pieces we still need to shoot. So now, Takeo-kun, I'll need you to stand over there, and Ryoko-kun, you run up to him and say ..."

This went on for a while until an aide reminded the director that they were on the verge of having to pay the crew overtime, and he abruptly stopped the shoot. "See you Monday!" he said, ushering us out.

We made our way out to the break room, where Mayumi and Aburatsubo – ack, I keep doing that, let's go with Mayumi and Ayanojo – were sitting there waiting.

"I have some bad news, Takeo-kun," Ayanojo said. "Or perhaps you'll regard it as good news."

"What's that?" I asked, though I had a suspicion of what he meant.

"I just called my mother, and she'll be out of town through next Wednesday. Obviously, it would not look appropriate for me to have Matsura-san at home by myself. We did finally get through to Aikawa-san, or, more precisely, her agent, only to find that she's flying down to Guam for a swimwear photoshoot for the next few days. So, like it or not, that leaves you as the one providing hosting duties for a bit longer."

"Oh. Wait, is this still necessary? After all, they're not even doing that competition any more."

"Ah, yes, about that," Mayumi said. "I'm afraid Mr. Yamashita is angrier at me than ever. Not only did his House get booted off the show, but now his wife has kicked him out of their physical house. He couldn't really explain why he was caught with a teenage girl's bra." She smiled. "But don't worry, Takeo. This'll be great! You and I can be study buddies!"

"Study buddies? Huh?"

"Yeah, Aya-kun told me about the entrance exam you're taking next Saturday. Well, I'm signed up for the same one! So we can study for it together."

"Oh, uh, I see, I – wait a second, 'Aya-kun'?" I looked over at Aburatsubo. "Really?"

He shrugged. "We had a nice conversation. It seems we have many interests in common. In particular, you. She has many unique insights into your personality."

"Huh? She does?"

"Yes, she knows just how to motivate you to work hard. Which is something you need right now. Think about it – with all the fooling around with Sawanoguchi you've been doing the last few weeks, how much studying for this exam have you done?"

"Well, I haven't exactly ... I mean, a lot of things have happened and, uh, ..."

"In other words, none whatsoever. Like I thought. Then this will be just what you need."

And so it was, without me even quite being aware of how, that Mayumi and I ended up on the subway heading back home. "I made some calls," she said, "and my parents are going to send a trunk of my clothes by train tomorrow. Also, I transferred my enrollment in the test prep school to the one near your house. Oh, and the school said they had extra space, so I thought you could sign up, too. What do you say? My treat, of course, for putting up with me this coming week."

"Test prep? I don't know, I–"

"Oh, c'mon. It'll be fun. The teachers are great, and we can work on problems together. And you want to be ready for the test, don't you? So you can stay close to your girlfriend while you're in college? You don't want to end up alone at some cruddy school out in the middle of nowhere, right?"

"Um, well, no, of course not."

"Then it's settled. I'll call and get you enrolled. Oh, and it's Monday through Friday, 4 to 6. I'll meet up with you in front of your school and we'll go together, ok?"

"Wait, 4 to 6 every day?"

"I know it isn't that much, but it's hard to do more when it's last minute like this. And you're pretty smart anyway, from what I've heard, so all they really have to do is touch you up on your weak points. Plus, I'll be working you pretty hard during the late hours," she added, giving me a nudge.

"OK, but 4-6, that's when our club meets, and –"

"And your girlfriend just said she's skipping the club next week, so why would you bother going to it?"

I had no answer for that. She was right, I realized. If I wanted to have a future with Sae, I had to work for it. "OK, fine, I'm in. And, uh, thanks."

"That's the spirit!"

When we arrived at our station, Mayumi asked, "Do you know of a good pastry shop nearby? If I'm going to impose on your family again, I shouldn't arrive empty-handed."

"Uh, yeah." And I led her to, you guessed it, that same bakery.

The owner was delighted to see us. "Ah, it's my best customer! And which young lady are we treating today?"

Mayumi smiled. "Actually, I'm the one doing the treating. How's the monburan?"

"Oh, it's his favorite. Or at least one of his other girlfriends' favorites."

"'Other girlfriends'? Takeo, have you been cheating on me?"

"Ha ha. Yeah, Ryoko really likes it. And it is pretty good." To be honest, I was getting a little tired of it, but then that was just me. Mayumi and my family hadn't had any yet, so sure.

So we left the shop with me carrying the cake, plus all of Mayumi's other purchases, plus she was hanging onto me, her crutches still sitting in our club room back at school. Some passersby snickered, and I heard a remark about, "Poor kid, she's already got him wrapped around her little finger." Sigh.

I wasn't sure what sort of reception Mayumi would have at home this time – my parents had been noncommittal when I had called – but it turned out I needn't have worried. Even without magical-chemical assistance, Mayumi was perfectly capable of winning people over. They were delighted with her cake offering, and with the sakura-patterned scarf which she had apparently also picked up for my mom at the lingerie store. And of course my dad was more than pleased about her getting me into that (apparently rather prestigious) test prep school.

And it wasn't just rich-girl-buying-her-way-in stuff, either. She proved very helpful getting dinner together. So helpful, in fact, that I was left standing around awkwardly, nothing for me to do.

And it wasn't just my parents she charmed. During dinner, she and Takako got to talking, which devolved into whispering, which devolved into giggling over something. And while I don't know exactly what that "something" was, the fact they kept stealing glances at me while doing so gave me a pretty big clue.

Though I can't really complain, because in the end, she charmed me as well. After dinner, at her insistence, we started our test review. Now sure, I'm pretty good at studying, but normally only by myself. When I've tried studying with other people in the past, they either haven't taken it seriously, or never seem to get anything and so make me explain stuff over and over again. (No, no, I'm not talking about Sae!)

But Mayumi listened to my explanations patiently, and caught on very quickly. And it wasn't a one-way street, either. While I was better at things like math, physics, and Classical Japanese, she far outpaced me in her knowledge of other areas, like European history and geography. Of course, there she had the advantage of actually having traveled to a lot of those places. Not that she lorded it over me or anything; rather, she filled out her answers with entertaining stories about her visit to the Acropolis, or her time at the flea market in Antibes, or her boat trip down the Danube. She was like that teacher that everyone loves, that everyone hopes they'll have next semester.

I told her as much. "You'd make a great teacher," I said.

"Oh, I don't know. Though you're pretty good yourself. We make a great team – we cover all the subjects!"

"Yeah, too bad we have to take the test individually."

"Well, I'll just have to see how much of me I can get into you. And you need to see how much of you you can get into me." She tapped my nose. "And no, I don't mean it that way, so you can just stop thinking that."

"What? No, I wasn't thinking that! Not at all!"

"And yet you immediately knew exactly what I was referring to."

"Well, uh, yeah, but I ..." I stopped, then realized something. "Wait a second, you knew it, too. So what does that say about you?"

"Oh, that's just because I, uh ... OK, you got me." She laughed. "Just don't expect that to happen again."

Needless to say, when I went to bed that night (my own bed, fortunately, as Mayumi had decided to sleep on a futon in my sister's room), all I could think about was that thing I said I hadn't been thinking about. Which left me with an uneasy feeling. I mean, Sae's the love of my life, of course, the one I will (eventually) be with forever. But ... but ... but ... it was kind of a relief to talk with someone where I didn't have to be constantly on my guard, careful not to say anything that would embarrass her. Mayumi could give as well as she could take, and ... and that was exactly the wording I shouldn't have used, as it made me think of that other thing, and Mayumi taking it and ...

And so it took a long time for me to fall asleep. Then in the morning, when I was going to get dressed, I realized I had forgotten to do my laundry. I had a shirt and pants I could wear, but the closest I had to clean underwear was the pair that Mayumi had worn. That had been in close, intimate contact with her for half of yesterday. Well, no choice. I picked them up and sniffed them carefully, aware of just how perverted this could look. Fortunately, they weren't funky, only a little hint of – no, not the hypno-perfume, but whatever it was she used to wash up, uh, down there.

I gingerly put them on, acutely conscious that what was going up against my, uh, stuff, had just been against her, uh, stuff. Not an indirect kiss, but an indirect, uh ... You know what, let's drop that and get dressed.

Mayumi was sitting at the table having breakfast when I finally emerged. She turned to look at me, an odd expression on her face. Wait, maybe she could read minds? Sure, it turned out Sae couldn't, fortunately, but if Mayumi could ... I turned beet red.

"Um, Takeo?" she said.

"Uh, yeah, uh, good morning, it's not, uh, that is, it's all I had, so I just went with it, I'm not trying to deliberately, uh, you know, but the association came into my mind and, uh ..."

"Huh? What are you talking about? All I meant was your shirt is on inside-out."

"It is?" I looked down. Oops. I had been so obsessed with the underwear I hadn't paid much attention to what went on top. "Sorry, let me straighten things out."

When I returned, Mayumi was smiling. "I just got word that my trunk is arriving at the station at 10:30. So if we leave pretty soon, we could spend an hour in the park nearby practicing that thing you wanted."

"That thing I wanted?" I swallowed hard. So – she could read my mind, and was still ok with it? "But – doing it in the park, in public?"

"Well, we can hardly do it here, in front of your family. But don't worry, I'm good at being discreet. I've had plenty of practice."

I gulped again. Those stories I had read about experienced girls seducing naive boys, that I was going to use on Sae ... Now I was on the other side. Except, "But, I mean, Sae, how can I ...?"

"Oh, I don't mind if you show Sae afterward. In fact, from what I've heard about her, she could really use it. More than most."

Gulp x 3. "What ... what do you mean by that?" Had she heard about that time with Ryoko's pills?

"Oh, just that she was kind of clumsy, and kept falling and hurting herself. So healing magic would really come in handy for her, right?"

"Healing magic?"

"Well, yes, that's what you wanted to learn about, right?"

"Oh, yeah, right, of course."

In the park, Mayumi led me to a secluded corner. "This should be private enough," she declared. "Now, I called it healing magic, but it's really more like repair magic. Straightening-out magic. It doesn't do any sort of general healing, like from disease or infection, but simply puts back in place things that got out of order somehow. Here, I'll demonstrate on this."

She bent a blade of grass over so the top half was at right angles. "OK, so that disturbed enough of the fibers that this can no longer stand up by itself, see?" She pushed the top half up, but it fell down again as soon as she let go. "But now, if I do this ..."

She held the blade up again, pointed the wand she had borrowed at it, and intoned,

"Korigete. Konlineate. Qurate!"

A blue glow appeared at the base of the blade and ran up its length, pausing briefly at the bend. When it faded, Mayumi let go, and this time the grass stood up by itself, just as erect as before.

"Now, like I said, this is really only for minor injuries, for accelerating what would happen naturally. If things get too far out of whack, it can't put them back together on its own. You'll have to rely on regular doctors for that." She pointed to another grass blade. "Anyway, it's your turn. Bend that one the way I did."

I did as directed.

"Now, hold it back in place and look at the veins running up the stalk. Picture them running straight and true, point your wand, and say the spell."

Again, I followed her directions, but nothing seemed to happen.

"Concentrate!" she said. "Clear your mind of everything else, and only think of the lines running straight through the bend."

I nodded, and gave it another try. This time, I noticed a faint little patch of blue glimmering near the base of the blade.

"That's it!" Mayumi said. "Now get it to flow up and all the way up and through the bend. Straight and true, straight and true."

I tried, and the blue glow did strengthen briefly and maybe moved a millimeter or two up the blade before it sputtered out.

Mayumi shook her head. "You seem distracted. Is something bothering you?"

"Nothing, it's just ..." I could hardly tell her my underwear was the problem. Especially considering the reason it was a problem – that it touching me down there made me imagine Mayumi herself touching me down there, and ...

But wait a second. Just a few days ago, I had not only been in underwear (and everything else) that Sae had worn, I had been in Sae's actual body. And aside from a few, well, ok, a lot of incidents, I was able to carry on more or less normally. I was able to be Sae. That's what I should do now, I thought. If I were Sae, it wouldn't matter that a girl had worn my underwear, right?

"Don't worry, I've got it," I said. I took on that cute determined Sae look I had practiced before (or at least as closely as I could manage with my not-so-cute face), focused all my attention on the blade of grass, and slowly and carefully repeated the spell

This time, the blue glow immediately appeared at the base of the stalk. I concentrated on it, and it grew brighter and brighter as it slowly inched its way upward. Then, suddenly, it became blindingly bright and raced up the length of the blade, shooting out of the tip and up into the air, where it exploded in a little display of fireworks.

"What the – That's amazing!" Mayumi said. "How did you get it to do that?"

"I just ... I just did what you said," I replied. "I concentrated a lot more."

"Uh huh. That was showy, but let's see what effect it had on your patient."

I let go of the blade of grass, and not only did it stand up straight and tall, it looked different, somehow.

"Huh, that's odd," Mayumi said. "It's all green now."

Ah, that was it. All the other grass had the faded, yellowish pallor you'd expect in the middle of a Tokyo winter, but this one blade was the lush, vibrant green of the middle of a Tokyo summer.

"I guess the spell must have restored the chlorophyll, too," I observed. "It's got a jump on springtime."

"The chlorophyll? I didn't think that sort of thing was possible." She pointed to another stalk, which looked rather withered. "Try it on that one."

I bent it as before, but this one proved more brittle and broke off instead. "Oops!"

"Oh, no!" she said. "Too bad. That's more than this spell can handle. Try another one."

Still in Sae mode, though, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I couldn't let the poor grass suffer. "No, please, let me see if I can fix it."

She shrugged. "Well, ok, but prepare to be disappointed."

No, I thought Sae-ishly. I can't disappoint this poor blade of grass! Holding the two pieces together firmly, I knelt down and whispered to it, "Don't worry. I'll save you. I promise."

Mayumi looked askance. "What do you think you're doing?"

I didn't reply, but focused all my attention on the broken blade and with firm determination intoned,

"Korigete! Konlineate! Qurate!"

This time, the blue glow appeared immediately, bright as the sun, if the sun were blue. Rather than just run up the stalk, though, it began spreading across the whole patch of grass, like it was set on fire. When it reached the base of a neighboring cherry tree, it grew even brighter, then climbed up its length, so that for a brief moment, the entire tree was engulfed in blue flame. The flame seemed to pause, then leaped up into the air, and with a blinding flash of light and clap of thunder, it vanished.

When I could see again, I discovered the stalk I was holding was fully healed, with no sign it had ever been broken. It was no longer withered, either, but straight and firm, a lush green color. Looking out, I saw the entire patch of grass was that vibrant green. As for the cherry tree, it was – huh? It was covered in a cloud of whitish pink blossoms, as full a full bloom as I had ever seen. Wow, I thought. I really am channeling Sae. A day in her body, and I'm over-powering spells, too.

"That was incredible!" Mayumi said. "But I can see I made a mistake. Back in Osaka. I should have gone for you directly, instead of trying to use you to gain control of Sae."

"Ha ha. But wait, how would that have been any different? I was the one you tried to grab, not Sae."

"Yes, but I'd have used different means if I were trying to recruit you, rather than use you as bait. More intimate means." She smiled and brushed her fingertips against my cheek.

I reddened at that – she could definitely get to me – but then called upon my Sae side for the strength to resist. "Ah, yes, of course, Dark Temptress," I said, smiling back.

She frowned. "I should never have let you know about that one."

"Sorry, sorry. I won't mention it again, I promise."

"Uh huh. Anyway, it's clear you've mastered the spell. We better get going to the train station. I'm afraid my ankle's been bothering me again, and it will take me a while."

I hesitated, then offered, "Could I try the healing spell on your ankle? Maybe I can improve it some more."

She looked skeptical. "You're not going to make flowers bloom out of my head, are you?"

"No, no, of course not. I'll keep it at a reasonable level."

She stared at me for a moment, then shrugged again. "My judgment's probably still impaired from those painkillers, but ok, have at it. You'll have to be a little more patient – it takes longer for the spell to get going on a human than on a blade of grass."

She sat down on a nearby bench, while I knelt down at her feet. I used my left hand to grasp her ankle, which, I noticed, was still somewhat swollen. I took a deep breath, tried to empty my mind of all else, then pointed my wand at her ankle with my right hand and carefully repeated the spell.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, but eventually, I noticed her ankle, which had been rather cold at first, was growing steadily warmer. I concentrated harder, trying to picture all the bones and ligaments and whatnot of her ankle being properly aligned, whole and sound. Soon, I was rewarded with a faint blue glow peeking out between my fingers. Now I worked on making it grow, like I had a spark I was trying to turn into a campfire. It took effort, but eventually the blue glow brightened and spread, until it covered the lower half of her leg.

"Oooh, that feels nice," Mayumi said. "Warm and tingly. Invigorating. I feel like I could walk to Osaka on this ankle, now."

I looked up and – big mistake. Because – no, wait, before I say why it was a big mistake, let me preface it with this: Mayumi, despite her "Dark Temptress" alias and her occasional penchant for innuendo, is on the whole poised, proper and ladylike. Perhaps not exactly the model Yamato Nadeshiko, but close enough. At least for our era. So it wasn't a lack of modesty on her part or anything, but simply because I needed access to her ankle, that she was holding her legs somewhat apart. And even then, if it weren't for the illumination provided by the blue glow, I wouldn't have seen ...

Intellectually, I know, the whole upskirt business doesn't make a lot of sense. It's just a glimpse of a piece of fabric you can barely see, so what's the big deal? If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can see a lot more when girls are in swimsuits or gym outfits. Or go attend a lingerie show, if you're that much into it. In Mayumi's case, not only had I seen her in her underwear before, I had even helped her put it on just two days prior. So the fact I saw a little bit of her panties lit up by the blue glow ... That was nothing special, right? Just look away, maybe apologize, and carry on?

That is of course not what happened. Instead, seeing the, let's say, forbidden zone, my inner 12-year-old went gaga. All those thoughts of the night before, and from my own underwear encounter that morning, everything which I had been keeping bottled up under my Sae side, now broke through in triumph and filled up my consciousness.

This is not a good thing when you're trying to work a delicate spell.

The blue glow, which I had been keeping more or less under control, now flared forth, brighter than ever before. It grew and grew, then suddenly raced up her leg, heading straight for her –

["Stop!" my mature side said. "Pull out, pull out!"]

["'Pull out'?" my 12-year-old side replied. "Ha ha, it's like you're talking about –"]

["Yes, that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. And we need to STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"]

It took a huge effort – it was like I was holding a live electrical wire and couldn't let go – but my mature side finally managed to force my hand away from her ankle and so break the spell. The blue glow shot up into the air and exploded in a harmless shower of sparks. Whew, I thought. Just in time.

Except not quite.

For just as I was about to congratulate myself, I saw that a remnant of the explosion had landed on her lap. It seemed to hesitate for a moment, then, before I could react, it slipped underneath her skirt and ...

Mayumi sat bolt upright, a startled expression on her face. For an infinite moment she sat there, paralyzed, not moving, not even breathing.

Yikes, had she been electrocuted? Like with Miyama and the Fulmen spell? "Are you all right?" I asked tentatively.

She didn't reply, didn't even look in my direction. But instead, after another long pause, she let out a shuddering gasp and then started panting rapidly, her face and neck flushed.

"Ma– Mayumi? What happened? Did I – did I hurt you? I'm sorry!"

She still didn't reply, but her breathing slowed, and she leaned back against the bench and sighed. Finally, still not looking at me, she said, "I'm fine. Just fine. But please don't try that again. Or else I really will have to marry you."

She got up and we began walking toward the station, still not looking directly at each other. "I'm really sorry," I repeated. "I, uh, I kind of lost control there. I didn't mean for things to go that far."

She laughed. "How often have you had to use that line with girls?"

"With girls? What do you – Oh, no, no, I didn't mean it that way! Well, ok, I guess in this case I sort of did mean it that way, but I didn't –"

"Takeo!" She stopped and faced me for the first time. "It's ok. I'm fine, I really am. Better than ever in fact. And I know you didn't intend for your spell to take those, um, liberties with me. But that's enough of that. So we won't speak of it any more, agreed?"

"Yes, of course."

"Just one thing though – before you use this spell on anyone else, practice on your girlfriend first, ok? Until you can get the, um, side effects under control? Because I'm afraid other people might not be so forgiving."

"Yeah, sure."

We made it to the train station in good time – Mayumi's ankle really was fully healed – and a few minutes later, the train arrived and we collected her trunk.

Something occurred to me. "Shouldn't we check whether there's a tracer spell on any of your other clothes? Yamashita may not have done just the one bra."

"Hmm, you have a point. Let's take it over here."

We went off to one side and laid the trunk on a bench. Mayumi opened it up, and intoned the Semita spell.

A telltale red glow appeared in one corner of the trunk. I began reaching toward it to pull out the culprit, but Mayumi pushed my hand away. "Hey, no pawing through my underwear. I'll get it."

It took a little poking around, but eventually she came up with another bra and two pairs of panties which were responsible for the glow. "Ah, I think I know what happened," she said. "Last week, our maid did the laundry and hung these things out in our laundry room to dry. These must have been the ones closest to the window. So if someone stood outside, it would have been these that the tracer spell reached."

"So what do you want to do with them?" I asked. "I suppose we could send them back to your parents."

"No, these aren't worth it. They're last year's designs. Let's get rid of them."

It didn't seem right to just throw out the underwear openly, so I found an empty paper bag that was sitting next to the trash can, stuffed the underwear into it, and tossed that. As I did so, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a shifty-looking guy was watching me. Uh-oh.

"Mayumi," I said in a low voice, "Don't make it obvious you're looking, but there's a guy over by the post there that's watching us. Do you recognize him? Is he one of Yamashita's men?"

She managed to steal a glance while closing up the trunk. "No, I've never seen him before," she whispered back. "Let's see if he tries to follow us when we leave."

We wheeled the trunk down the hall and around a corner, then stopped and peeked back to where we had come from. The guy hesitated, looked around, then made his way over to the trash can and retrieved the bag I had discarded. He pulled out the items one by one and examined them closely, which included, uh, sniffing them. He then put them back in the bag, stuffed it in his coat pocket, turned, and quickly walked away.

Mayumi and I looked at each other. "Pretty sure he's not a spy for Mr. Yamashita," she said.

"Yeah, his interests seem a little, uh, different," I replied.

"And there's something else for us not to talk about any more," she declared. "Let's go."

We were walking past a gift shop on the way home when Mayumi stopped and asked, "Do you know what sorts of things your sister likes? I feel I should get her a gift if I'm going to be intruding on her space like this."

"Takako? Well, she likes making fun of me, but ... Oh wait, I know. She really likes cats, though our parents won't let us have pets. But something cat-themed, maybe."

"Cat-themed? That should be easy enough. You wait out here; the store's too cramped for us to take that trunk inside."

Fifteen minutes later, she emerged with a small package, which she handed to me. "Most of their stuff was kind of tacky, but I think this was nice. Hope she likes it."

I stuck it in my pocket and we continued on our way home. I did check occasionally to see if anyone seemed to be following us, but no, the coast was clear. The guy at the train station really must have been some random pervert, is all.

"Tadaima!" I called out as usual when we got home.

"Okaeri!" Mom replied. "Did you two have an enjoyable walk?"

"Oh, it was very enjoyable," Mayumi said. "Sheer ecstasy, even, at times."

"Um, ok ... Anyway, lunch will be ready shortly. Could you set the table, Takeo?"

"I'll help!" Mayumi said.

And she did. Then after lunch, we returned to studying, until we got tired of that, whereupon Mayumi volunteered us to fix dinner, which we did, and which turned out very well – it seems Mayumi had picked up a lot of skills from the home chef her family had – then after dinner, we studied some more, until we couldn't take it any more, and sat down with the rest of the family in front of the TV.

I don't remember what show was on, because shortly after we sat down, a news bulletin appeared. "TRADING COMPANY CEO CAUGHT IN PEDOPHILE WEB!" the headline screamed. The accompanying grainy video (evidently shot from quite a distance) showed what were clearly Yamashita and two of his henchmen being ushered into police cars, along with several other guys, one of whom was –

"That's the creep at the train station!" Mayumi said. "Oh, dear. This is a little too much. I feel like I should do something for Mr. Yamashita, but I'm not sure how."

"What? You know these people?" Mom asked.

"Oh, uh, well, Mr. Yamashita is my uncle. He's kind of the black sheep of the family, but not like this. Never like this!"

"That you know of, you mean. Guys who do stuff like that tend to keep it hidden." Mom paused, then thought of something. "Wait, this 'Mr.' Yamashita" – I could hear the scare quotes in her voice – "does he have any daughters?"

"Daughters? Oh, no, the Yamashitas never had children."

"And how about you? Was he ever ... improper with you?"

"What? No, no, no! I mean, he could be kind of short-tempered, but my mom says that's just because he wasn't used to kids. But none of that other stuff."

"All right," Mom said, though the way she said it didn't sound like it was really all right. "But what about this 'guy at the train station'?"

Mayumi punted. "Oh, um, Takeo can explain."

Gee, thanks, I thought. But I came up with, "Yeah, uh, he was this weird guy who seemed way too interested in Mayumi – and especially Mayumi's clothes. But we managed to give him the slip, er, I mean, get away from him. Good thing, too, it seems."

Fortunately, the news then went on to, "Sudden spring? Local park has blooming corner – in January! Scientists say heat from underground pipes is the cause."

Anton Chekhov once said that if you hang a pistol on the wall in the first act, by the third act it must be fired. This isn't a pistol, exactly, but I did leave something hanging previously which now makes its appearance.

Mom and Dad had already headed to bed, and we were about to, when Mayumi remembered, "Oh, Takako, we got you a little something. To thank you for putting up with me. Takeo?"

"Oh, right." I reached into my pocket, pulled out the package, and set it in front of Takako. "There you go. Enjoy!"

Takako reached for it, then suddenly pulled her arm back. "What the – Is this some kind of sick joke?"

"Huh? No, it's –" I looked down, and saw what I had given her was ... Oh. The condoms from the Funabashi Love Hotel, which evidently had still been in my pocket. "Ack! No! Not that, I meant this!" I quickly grabbed the condoms and got out the correct package.

Takako looked askance at me. "What have you been up to?"

"Nothing, nothing! Ryoko just gave me these as a joke, is all."

"Uh huh. Wait a second – Funabashi, wasn't that the first place where they arrested that Yamashita guy? Were you involved in that somehow?"

"Uhhhh ..." Mayumi and I looked at each other. What to do? I sighed and said, "All right, I'll level with you, Takako. Yamashita is after Mayumi. Never mind why, but he's really angry with her, and we've got to protect her. So far, we've been successful in throwing him off her trail, especially after the arrests today. But he could still show up an any time. So we're going to need you to be on alert. If you notice anyone suspicious poking around the neighborhood this coming week, you'll let us know, ok?"

As I had hoped, Takako was excited by the notion. "Sure! Of course! I'm pretty observant, you know."

"Right. But, uh, don't tell Mom and Dad about any of this, ok? No need to get them worrying, too."

"Of course, of course." She thought for a moment, then, "But wait, why should I just report things to you? Shouldn't we be going to the police?"

I was ready for that. "Let's just say Mayumi and I are not exactly what we seem. We have certain ... abilities, but ..."

"But if you told me, you'd have to kill me, I know."

"No, no, I'd never harm my beloved sister," I replied, smiling. I swiftly changed to a frown and added, in an ominous tone, "There are, however, others who might."

"Oh ... ok." She thought for a moment, then said, "But what's with the condoms? What are they for?"

I patted her head. "Don't worry, you'll find out when you're older."

Amazingly enough, I did not have to use healing magic on myself after that remark.

In the morning, while I went off to school, Mayumi headed back to the studio. It seems that with Yamashita and the House of Mystery out, they needed to establish a new source for Mayumi's "evilness." What they came up with was some story about how she had been a sweet innocent girl who was betrayed by a duplicitous boyfriend. A demon then persuades her to take revenge on all men everywhere and – and for the rest, you'll just have to wait until the series comes out, assuming it ever does.

Now I don't have any proof, but I suspect this may be based on reality. Mayumi and I had been joking around when I made some remark about all the guys whose hearts she must have broken.

She froze up and said in an (of course) icy tone, "Don't ever say that again. Betrayal like that – it's the worst. I would never, ever do that. Understand?"

I was taken aback. "OK, sure." I hesitated, then said, "But you were a double agent, even a quintuple one in the end. Isn't that a kind of betrayal?"

"Oh, well, that's just a business matter. But when it comes to the heart – anyone who would betray a girl's heart is lower than a snake!"

"'A girl's heart'? Hold on – It's none of my business, I know, but are you talking about something that happened to you?"

"You're right."

"I am?"

"Yes, it's none of your business."

As for me, school was, for once, relatively uneventful. No problems with the teachers, no naked girl encounters, no "hospital" trips. Well, there was one incident:

I was walking down the hallway when I saw Sae running, presumably late for class. She – I know this will surprise you – tripped, and fell heavily. I hurried over to her.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm – I'm fine. Excuse me, I have to get to –" She tried getting up but immediately fell back again. "Sorry, my knee –"

"Um –" I looked around, and no one was nearby. "Let me help. I learned some of the healing magic yesterday, and –"

Before she could say anything, I put my hand on her knee, pulled out the wand, and repeated the Korigete spell.

Physical contact with Sae gave an instant jolt in power to the spell, so the bright blue glow immediately surrounded her knee. Fortunately, I had anticipated as much, and focused all my attention at keeping it under control. Leg only, leg only, I told myself. Don't let it get any higher! No orgasms in the hallway!

It mostly worked. That is, the blue glow didn't make it into any improper zones, but it did spread over the entirety of both of her legs, like she was wearing super-shiny blue stockings. Hmm, I thought, sort of like the ones in Aikawa's witch outfit, but brighter. The distracting thought turned out to be fortunate, as it caused the spell to dissipate just as the vice principal was coming up the hallway.

"Hey, you two!" Kimura-sensei shouted. "What did I tell you? None of that on school property!"

"S-sorry!" I said. "Sae tripped, and I was just helping her back up." Which I now did, for real. "How are you?" I asked. "Is your leg ok now?"

She tentatively flexed her legs. "It's fine," she said. "They're both fine. In fact, they feel better than ever. Thanks." She looked up at the clock on the wall. "Oh, I'm sorry, I really have to go. But, thank you!"

With that, she took off. And I almost mean so literally – she dashed down the hallway at a speed that would make an Olympic sprinter proud. So would her form, for that matter. Normally she has this sort of awkward (but cute) gait; as she told me once, she went through quite a growth spurt when she was younger, and her coordination had never managed to catch up. That was no longer the case, as she moved with a ballerina's grace. An incredibly fast ballerina, that is.

"Hey! No running in the –" Kimura-sensei began, but she was already gone. He gazed at where she had been with a thoughtful expression. "Amazing. Why isn't she on our track team?" he said to himself.

"Yes, Sae is definitely amazing," I agreed.

He turned and looked at me with a severe expression. "Perhaps, but that does not excuse you canoodling with her in a school hallway. Now get to class, young man."

I managed to make it through the rest of the school day without any more "canoodling." I was standing out in front of the school, waiting for Mayumi, when I saw Sae leaving, accompanied by Nanaka and ... Ai Aihara?

"Oh, hi!" I said. "Are you going to check out that new cafe?"

Ai looked puzzled. "You know about that? Wait, are you Sae's boyfriend?"

"Well, I hope so at least."

Ai turned to Sae. "This is the guy you meant? Really?"

Sae blushed. "Um, hi, Takeo. Well, you know, he's helped me a lot, and ..."

"Oh, that's right!" Ai turned back to me. "Your training is amazing! You'll have to show me sometime!"

"Training? You want to learn magic?"

"Magic? I guess it was, kind of. The way she swam that 50 meters ..."

"Swam?" Oh, right, the healing spell. Obviously it was still having an effect. "I guess you did pretty well in gym class, Sae?"

"She broke the school record," Nanaka said. "And apparently you had something to do with it," she added pointedly.

"Me? Oh, uh, no, Sae had it in her all along. I just helped her with her confidence to do it."

"Oh, I get it!" Ai exclaimed. "You're the guy that was hypnotizing girls, right? So you used hypnotic suggestion on her? Hmm, maybe I could try that, too. Except I'd be afraid you'd slip in some of that sexual stuff ..."

"No, no, no, I never hypnotized anyone!" I said. "I was just, uh, supporting her. Plus some, uh, special leg exercises."

"Oh, ok. Well, maybe later then. But I promised Sae I'd introduce her to these amazing profiteroles, so we'd better get going."

Wow, I thought to myself as they left. Had I unlocked the secret to a new generation of Olympic champions? Would I now become a world-famous trainer? Not to jump ahead too much, but the answer, as you can guess from Japan's recent relatively average Olympics performance, is no. The "Super-Sae" effect turned out to wear off quickly, within a few hours at most, and didn't seem to be renewable. Though one permanent effect was that Sae's clumsiness was gone for good. It took some getting used to the new graceful Sae in place of the old awkward one, but in the end I decided I liked her just as much that way. Maybe even more.

But that's getting ahead of the story. Next to appear was ... oh. Miyama. Oddly, she didn't emerge from the school, but from a taxi which pulled up in front of the building. "There you are!" she cried on seeing me. "Don't move! I need to talk to you!"

Moving, preferably with Sae's super-speed, was exactly what I wanted to do, but I was stuck. "Uh, what is it, Miyama – excuse me, Mizuho?"

"Don't call me Mizuho!" She ran up and jabbed a finger into my face. (A finger and two other things, but you know about them.) "Guess where I've been all weekend?"

"What? This weekend?" What was she talking about? Unless – "Wait, did you make it to Hawaii? By yourself? Without Sae and me?" If she could do that, then ...

"No, you idiot! Last Friday that weird Ryoko girl dragged you two off to be 'cured' from that alien illness, remember?"

"Alien illness? Oh, right." Hey, that had been three whole days ago; hard to remember that far back. "Fortunately, their treatment worked and we're just fine. But right now I'm –"

"Yeah, I'll bet you're fine. When she said that to me, I started feeling sick, so I went to the emergency room and told them everything, how you had been playing with the alien tech like their disintegrator and their transporter and had contracted some virus, and that I had it now too, because of that French kiss you forced on me – which by the way is never, ever happening again, so you can just stop hoping for that right now –"

Forced on her? Best ignore that. "That's ok, I'll survive."

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't be too sure of that. Anyway, I told them all that, and about how the aliens had been after me from the start, like when they made flowers grow out of my head, which must have weakened my immune system and made me more susceptible, and so I needed the secret government treatment right away. And do you know what they did?"

"Took your temperature?"

"As a matter of fact, they did, but that's not the point. They said my case sounded very serious and I needed to be put under observation. Which they did – all weekend long! And into today! I just got out a half hour ago!"

"Oh, I see. That's unfortunate, but they were just being careful. I trust you're ok now."

"You're still missing the point! It wasn't medical observation, it was psychiatric observation! They thought I was crazy!"

"Oh." I was divided between wanting to laugh and wanting to run like hell, but knew neither would be a good option. "Well, you know, those who haven't had experience with the aliens can find it hard to understand those of us who have, and –"

"Takeo! There you are! Come on, we've got to go!"

Never had I been so grateful to hear Mayumi's voice. "Coming!" I replied.

Miyama wasn't going to let me go that easily. "Wait a minute, who is this?" she asked. "Another fake government agent?"

"Government agent? What?" Mayumi turned to me. "Takeo, who are you talking with?"

"Oh, that's Miyama-san. Mizuho Miyama. I told you about her." Figuring I needed to finish the introductions, I continued, "Miyama-san, this is my friend, Mayumi Matsura. Sorry, but we've got to go to –"

"'Friend'? Oh, I get it," Miyama said. "This is another of those girls you enslaved, isn't it? Honestly, your perversions are out of control."

Mayumi laughed. "Sorry, girl, but you've got it backwards. Takeo's my slave. But don't worry. Once I'm done with him, you can have him. And what I'll have taught him will make it worth the wait. Ta-ta!"

I was bracing for Miyama's explosion, but this was so far over the top that it took her a while to process it all. So we had already left the schoolyard by the time she let out a long, loud, incoherent shriek, followed by "WHO ARE YOU CALLING 'GIRL'!? I'M GOING TO –" followed by other stuff I (fortunately) couldn't quite make out.

"I'd prefer not being called your slave," I said to Mayumi, once we were out of earshot.

"Sorry. But what about all those poor girls you enslaved? It's not like you gave them a choice about what they were called."

"I told you, I never enslaved anybody!"

"Fine, fine, fine. Anyway, slave or not, we need to get moving. Can't have you late for your first session."

Despite this inauspicious start, the cram school itself went fine. They were, of course, very familiar with the admission test we'd be taking. As they emphasized, the issue wasn't so much knowing the material, all of which we should have had at some point, but rather understanding how the test questions were put together and what they were asking for. I had heard this sort of thing before, but putting it into practice day after day started giving me confidence, so I went from a feeling of vague dread about the test to actually kind of looking forward to it. So yeah, that part of the afternoon went well.

I suppose now I need to talk about the filming. Except it's a little embarrassing. Oh, all right, the first day was fine. We had to reshoot the whole rescuing-Mayumi-from-the-mountainside sequence, since of course she had lost her camera in the fall. Going through all our exchanges back then (which admittedly our memories may have enhanced a bit, in case you thought I sounded a little too smooth) was kind of nice. Sort of like reliving first love, or at least first "like."

So Monday went well, but then Tuesday, oh Tuesday ... In this version of events, I take care of Mayumi by myself. This is of course the sort of thing I love, but, for the sake of ratings, they had decided that "taking care" meant, uh, very personal care. In other words, exactly that fantasy I had had back in the hospital, about me, uh, bathing her ... And then, what with us both having been taken over by demons, one thing leads to another leads to the first time that we, uh, you know, do it ...

Which of course we don't really do. But I'll bet you're wondering how exactly they had us fake that for the cameras, and no, the answer is not mosaic. First of all, we weren't actually naked. We wore these skin-tone swimsuit-like things – in another disturbing note, they had ones to match every conceivable skin tone – but they used clever camera angles to hide the fact. And again, this not being an AV, we're just starting the final scene before it fades to black. So yeah, not anything I'd want to do in front of my parents, or in front of Sae, but nothing that outrageous, right?

Except my "swimsuit-like thing" was more of a thong – a barely-there thong. So barely-there that, to avoid another Miyama-like display, I had to do some, uh, trimming. Actually, they were going to have one of their people do the trimming at first – a really stern-looking older woman, so don't think it was like that – but I insisted on handling it myself. And that could have gone better.

No, no, I didn't cut myself or anything, but I was doing it in the dressing room while Aburatsubo was there. It seems he had his own love scene with Ryoko to shoot, but they being the good guys, it just meant him taking off his shirt. Now I know you slash fiction types have already taken this scenario and run with it, so I don't know why I'm bothering to say it, but nothing else really happened there. Oh, Aburatsubo did offer to help, but he wasn't serious ... I think. So, nothing happened, but it was embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing was ... how to explain? While I said that Mayumi and I only start the scene and then it fades out, the director kept changing his mind about just how he wanted our initial, uh, grope to be. So we kept doing different combinations of me grabbing her there, or her grabbing me here, and then us rolling like this or that, or one of us pulling the other one down, or collapsing on top, or whatever.

I'm sure you're saying, "What? He gets to grope a beautiful almost-naked girl repeatedly, and he's complaining?" Well, yeah, sure, off by ourselves, warm and comfortable, no interruptions, and, uh, Sae not finding out, that would be one thing. But like this, surrounded by the crew, bright lights, cameras, and a very critical director? Plus, we were soaking wet and hardly wearing anything in a cold, drafty studio.

But that's not the most embarrassing part. The director decided I looked "too innocent" with my glasses on, so I had to take them off. With that, and with all the steam rising up from the tub they had set up in the cold studio, and with the lights shining in my face, I had trouble seeing what I was doing, so I grabbed the wrong, uh, body part. More than once. In fact, one of the reasons we had so many takes is I kept saying "Sorry" every time my hand ended up somewhere it shouldn't.

Finally we were done and on the train back home. "I'm really sorry about all that," I said to Mayumi. "I didn't mean to!"

"Oh, it's no big deal. You only grabbed my boobs like a dozen times."

"A dozen times? Really? That many?"

She laughed. "No, actually, it was only five times. And don't worry. It's far from the worst thing a guy has ever done to me."

"Mayumi ..." I looked at her. "I'll bet this is something else you don't want to talk about."

"You win that bet." She was silent for a moment, then sighed, "But really, don't worry. Some guy was a jerk to me. Old, old story. I'm long past all that."

"If you say so. But if you ever change your mind, I'm here to listen. For whatever that's worth."

"Thanks." She sat in silence a moment. Finally, she said, "It's a good thing you're not my type. Otherwise I'd be tempted to steal you away, and that would hardly be fair to Sae."

"Ah, ok. So what kind of guy is your type?"

She sighed. "I don't really know. I haven't found him yet. Maybe he doesn't exist."

Wednesday was slightly less embarrassing than Tuesday, but only slightly. This time, the story was that Mayumi and I were plotting how we were going take revenge on Ryoko (never mind revenge for what), and we get so worked up over our evil plans that we end up in bed together.

Now, being in bed was a lot warmer and more comfortable, and strategic cuts meant we didn't need to undress that much before getting under the covers. But the director declared, "With less skin, we're going to need more passion," and kept making us try out different positions, like we were auditioning for the Kama Sutra.

I'm only human, and all this close contact and, um, humping in bed, without the cold and wet to keep a certain body part under control, had the obvious effect. Fortunately, with us still somewhat clothed and under a blanket, nobody noticed.

Well, nobody other than Mayumi. When we finally finished shooting, we sat in the bed for a while as I waited for things to, um, subside.

"I guess I must be your type, even if you aren't exactly mine," she said.

"Ah, yeah, sorry, but it's a, uh, natural reaction to the, uh situation."

"Oh, that's ok, I understand. I kind of enjoyed it too. Much better than yesterday. I guess you've had a lot of practice with your girlfriend."

"With Sae?" I turned red. "Actually, the closest we got was when I was a girl and she was a boy and we started to, uh, you know ..."

"Oh, so you know both sides? That would make you the perfect lover! Hmm, maybe I will steal you after all."

Before I could say anything, one of the crew called out, "All right, out! We're breaking the set down now! You two are just going to have to continue this in your own bed. Good night!"

We managed to make it out of there and onto the subway without further embarrassment, but as we neared home, Mayumi suddenly asked, "So, you want me to sleep with you tonight? Continue what we started back there?"

I gagged. "What? Sleep with – you're joking, aren't you?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way for you to find out."

"Uhhhhhhh ..." What could I say to that? Then it hit me. "Yeah, uh, I'm afraid if we did, the only place we'd be sleeping together is in an alley. My parents would kick us out of the house as soon as we tried that."

She laughed. "Very clever! But isn't that going to be a problem later? For you and Sae?"

"Um, I guess, but ..."

"Wait, I've got it! Let's rent an apartment!"

"An apartment?"

"Yes, we're going to pass the exam this Saturday, right?"

"Well, I hope so, at least."

"C'mon, we've both been doing great. It'll be a snap! But I'll need a place to stay if I'm going to college here. I know what your dad said, but face it, there's no way I could stay at your house for four years. And do you really want to live your college life under their supervision?"

"No, but my parents aren't going to let me rent an apartment with a girl, either."

"Oh, it wouldn't just be the two of us. Fun though that might be. We'll rent a bigger place and each recruit roommates – I know Ryoko wants to get out of her house, so I'm sure she'd be game, and what about Aya-kun? Think he'd like to share a room with you?"

"Aburatsubo? He, uh, might like it a little too well. But he's already told me he's going away for college. Wants to get as far away from here as possible."

"Oh, well, we'll just get somebody else, then. Or leave the bed space open for when Sae visits."

There was followup to this, but I'm going to have to leave the subject of housing arrangements for another time, as we still need to get through Thursday.

Thursday started out peacefully enough. Sae was still avoiding me, of course, but that was balanced out by the fact Miyama was avoiding me too, for some reason. Test prep went great – we took a sample test, and I knew I had aced it. Mayumi said it was the best she had ever done, too, so we were in a good mood when we left.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Mayumi said. "Tonight, we're just shooting some scenes with Ryoko and me, so they're not going to need you. So I'll see you at home in a couple hours or so, ok?"

"I guess. Unless you'd like me to come along for moral support?"

"Ah, no, that's ok. Actually, I'd kind of prefer you don't come."

"What, do you have a bed scene with Ryoko?"

She tapped my nose. "You're just going to have to wait and see. I'm not telling."

"I guess I'll have something to look forward to, then," I said. "But at least let me walk you to the subway station."

"My, how chivalrous! Sure, if you wish."

It was, for February, a pleasant evening, and we had a pleasant conversation on our way to the station. When we got there, Mayumi said, "I'm sorry you won't get to make out with me tonight. Hopefully this will tide you over." With that, she suddenly wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hard. "See you later!" And she turned and left.

I decided to take the long way on my walk home, back past the prep school and through the park. It was, after all, quite pleasant, and I had many pleasant things to think about. Like, Mayumi and me in bed. Mayumi and Ryoko in bed. Sae and me in bed. Mayumi, Ryoko, Sae and me all together in bed. Hmm, going to need a bigger bed for that one. Maybe put a couple of futons together and –

"There you are!"

Startled, I looked up and saw – Yamashita, and two of his men. Yikes! I was about to turn and run, when I noticed there were five – no, six more hovering on broomsticks, who quickly formed a perfect circle, or rather a regular hexagon (sorry, geometry questions in the sample test) around me.

"Finally tracked you down," Yamashita continued. "I had a hunch and checked with Matcha's prep school, and they said she transferred to the one here. I was afraid we got here a little late, but no, looks like they kept you after. Now, where is she?"

"She-she's gone," I said. "She left, and I don't know where she is." Which was technically true; I don't have the subway's route memorized.

"Oh, really? Well, no matter. She'll turn up soon enough, once she discovers we've taken you prisoner. She's apparently taken a liking to you for some reason, so all we need to do is use you for bait."

"No, I can't let you do that!"

"And how do you propose to stop me? Without a girl's skirts to hide behind, you're nothing!"

I blanched. He was right. Without Sae's power, how could I ... Wait a second – Sae? Power? I suddenly had an idea. Summoning the image of Sae's fall of a few days earlier, I pointed my wand at my legs and intoned,

"Korigete. Konlineate. Qurate!"

Yamashita was puzzled. "Huh? Healing your own legs? What, did you hurt yourself earlier? Why choose now to fix it?"

I ignored him, concentrating on pouring all my love for Sae, or Mayumi, or whoever, into the spell. I could feel my legs tingling – no, more than tingling, electrified, pulsating with an energy I had never experienced before.

"I don't know what he thinks he's doing," Yamashita said to the others, "but it doesn't matter. Ogawa, use the stun spell on him and we'll –"

I took off like a shot, racing past Yamashita and leaping high up into the air, grabbing the end of the broom one of the guys was riding. My added weight caused him to nosedive, tumbling off onto the ground. I quickly mounted the broom and sped off down the street, turned a corner and was gone before they could react.

I had gotten away. But now what? Chances were, they had a tracker on the broom, so I couldn't fly it home, or to Sae's place, or to the studio. I could ditch it and rely on my super-speed, but I didn't know how long that would last. And even if I did lose them, they'd be sure to get me tomorrow, either at school or the test prep place.

Yamashita was right, I thought. Whenever I had gotten in a jam in the past, I had relied on the girls saving the day. Sae, mostly, but also Mizusawa in the past, and Mayumi (and even Ryoko) more recently. The problem was, I had always avoided learning any offensive magic. Yes, yes, I justified it by saying magic must only be used for good and all that, but deep down, wasn't it really that I was afraid of confrontations?

There was no avoiding a confrontation now. I thought about the studio guy calling Ryoko the "next Lina Inverse." Yeah, we could use a Lina Inverse now. Throw a few fireballs or a Mono Bolt at those guys and –

Hold on a second – Mono Bolt? Aburatsubo had been the one who found the Fulmen spell, and he mentioned at the time there was also an attack version. I hadn't bothered with it, of course, but maybe he knew it? And could teach it to me?

It was worth a try. I'd check for him at the school first. Then if he wasn't there, I'd ditch the broom (the Mystery House guys already knew about the school, so that wouldn't tell them anything new), and try to super-speed my way to his place.

I rose up high in the air – right now, speed was more important than concealment – and made a beeline for the school. I flew at a blistering pace, far faster than I had ever gone before. Either there was a better enchantment on this broom than I could manage, or my leg's super-speed had rubbed off on it as well. Less than a minute later, the schoolyard came into view, where I saw, to my great relief, that Aburatsubo and Nakatomi were just leaving.

"Guys, wait up!" I called. I dropped down rapidly in front of them, then tossed the broom to one side. "The – the Fulmen spell – the attack version," I said, panting from the exertion I had put in, "you know it? You could teach me?"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on, Takeo," Aburatsubo replied. "What's going on? Why are you out of breath? Is someone chasing you?"

"Yeah, it's the House – the House of Mystery guys. They're still after me. Well, after Mayumi, but she's off at the studio, and I'm the one they cornered and they want to use me as bait to catch her and –"

"And you want something to stop them. I see." He thought for a moment. "Well, yes, I did try the attack version out of curiosity, but I'm afraid you'll find it disappointing. It's hard to project power any real distance with it. Oh, I suppose Sawanoguchi could use it to light up Tokyo Tower, in the unlikely event she ever got it to work, but for a normal person, no, it won't do much."

"Whatever, it's still better than anything else I have. Is it easy to learn? What do I have to do?"

"It's really just a projection spell. The power has to exist already. So you do the normal Fulmen spell, then when it's fully energized, you point your wand at the target and say,

"Imfure bin, purtate sukopun, ite!

"Your body's charge then runs through your wand and hits the target. All that's easy enough. What's hard, though, is keeping the energy concentrated. It will want to spread out once it leaves your wand and, just like in physics, inverse square law, by the time it travels more than a couple of meters, the power will be negligible, no matter how much you started with."

"I see. But if I concentrate enough, I can keep the power, uh, concentrated?"

"Possibly. I'll admit I didn't have much luck when I tried, but perhaps you'll be better at it."

"We'll see, I guess. Now I think we –"

"There he is!" a voice called out. "Down there!"

I turned around to see Yamashita's five remaining men on broomsticks closing in on us. No way could I get that attack spell together before they arrived, even assuming it would work. What could I – wait, I knew!

"Nakatomi!" I said. "Quick! The barrier spell – you were the best of any of us at it. Put it up! And make it as strong as you can!"

"Right!" she said, and shouted, "MORABI DEOR! CADI DEOR! LAXI DEOR!"

The red checkerboard pattern quickly appeared and solidified, blindingly bright. "Perfect!" I said. "That should hold them off until I can –"

"Takeo!" Aburatsubo's voice was barely audible over the humming sound the barrier was making. "You're on the wrong side!"

I looked around and realized the bright red checkerboard I was admiring formed a dome around Nakatomi and Aburatsubo – a dome I was on the outside of. "Oops!"

Just then, I noticed the lead broomstick guy point his wand at me and shout a spell. The end of his wand grew red and a beam shot out straight toward me.

Fortunately I still had my super-speed and was able to jump out of the way just in time. The beam hit Nakatomi's barrier, then bounced off at incredible speed – right back at the guy who had fired it. It hit him straight on before he could react. His eyes rolled back, he slumped to one side, and he and his broom came crashing down to earth.

That gave me an idea. I pulled his broom out from under him as the four others were arriving. I mounted the broom, kicked off the ground, and flew up right through the middle of their group. As I saw them point their wands at me and say their spells, I suddenly plunged back through their group, just as they fired.

As I had hoped, two of them were so intent on tracking me they didn't notice where they were pointing and shot each other instead. Again, they slumped over and tumbled helplessly to the ground.

Three down, two to go. But they weren't about to fall for that trick again. I'd have get the attack spell together somehow. But with them constantly after me, how could I – wait a second, where were the other two?

I heard a crackling sound behind me and turned around in time to see a lightning bolt shoot out from a wand sticking through the barrier, racing through the air to strike – one of the remaining two, who I saw was just above me, about to hit me with his own spell. Instead, his whole body lit up and shook, and he too then tumbled to the ground, paralyzed.

"Got him! My best ever!" Aburatsubo's voice called out. "Sorry, Takeo, the last one's too far away for me. You'll have to handle him."

I nodded, then took off running across the school grounds, zigzagging and reversing wildly to avoid the last guy's attempts to stun me. I evidently succeeded as I heard him call out, "Hold still, damn you!"

I was not about to do that. Instead, I slipped into an alcove between the school walls, pulled out my wand and quickly repeated, "Fulmen proteget, inpulsa tutele actuat!" I was rewarded with a yellowish glow which surrounded me. Good, but I was going to need a lot more power than that, from what Aburatsubo had said. I concentrated, and raised it up to the blue-white level I had reached back with Mayumi on the mountain. Hopefully that would do.

I emerged, looked up and saw – oh, rats, he was at least 10 meters up. Probably keeping his distance to avoid my super-jump. But five times Aburatsubo's distance, inverse square, my attack would be 25 times weaker. Assuming I could get it to work at all.

The guy wasn't impressed either. "The Fulmen spell? You've got to be kidding me," he said. "Don't you know that can be easily defeated by grounding? Here's a free lesson – exankulate ad fundati ..."

"Ground? But –" Wait! That's it! I pointed the wand at him and quickly rattled off, "Imfure bin, purtate sukopun, ite!"

The electricity began pouring out of my wand and moving tentatively in his direction. It had made it barely halfway, and was starting to dissipate, when he finished his spell. Suddenly, the power regrouped itself and surged upward, flowing into his wand and from there into his body. Like a circuit being completed, between my pushing and his pulling, every last bit of the power I had stored up discharged into him in a fraction of a second.

His wand disintegrated first, then the ends of his broom; even his clothing and hair became singed. He started falling, slowly at first, then rapidly as the magic evaporated and gravity took over. I barely managed to get a levitation spell out in time to keep him from crashing hard. Gently, I lowered him to the ground, then went and stood over his motionless figure.

"You can't ground something when you're up in the air," I said. "You need the ground to ground."

Hold on, what was I doing, gloating? The guy had just been hit with a massive shock. I had to check his vitals. Fortunately, though, his heart was beating normally, and his breathing was shallow but stable. Just in case, I repeated Mayumi's healing spell over him, but kept the power at a minimal level. I wanted him to survive, not wake up with super-strength and beat the crap out of us.

Aburatsubo and Nakatomi walked over to me. "He's the last one?" Aburatsubo asked.

"The last out of these," I said. "Yamashita had a few others with him, but I assume they're having to work their way through Tokyo traffic to get here."

"Sorry about leaving you out of the barrier," Nakatomi said. "You were a little farther away than I could reach."

"No, it's my fault, I should have realized that," I said. "And anyway, it worked out. Your barrier knocked out one guy, and gave Aburatsubo time to take out another. Plus gave me the idea to have two more take each other out. We couldn't have done it without you. Thanks."

"You're welcome. But we can't keep doing this. Face it, we've been lucky so far, but we're just high school kids who barely know any magic. Sooner or later, they're going to catch us."

"Perhaps," I said, "but do we have any choice? What else can we do?"

"We can't do much, but maybe the law can. He's already been arrested twice, right? For being caught up in perverted stuff with teenage girls? Now, he's managed to talk his way out, but if they arrest him for that a third time? In one week? No way would they ever let him go."

"I suppose so, but how can – Wait, are you saying –"

"Yes, I'm saying I'll be the bait. Let them capture me, but call the police first, so they'll be caught red-handed."

"I don't know, that could be risky –"

"Takeo's right," Aburatsubo said. "It's too dangerous. As club president, I can't allow it. As club president and as ... your friend."

Nakatomi blushed at that, but shook her head. "We've got to put an end to this. You may be president of the club now, but I'm the vice president, and will be the president soon enough. So it's kind of my duty. And I'm not worried; I can take care of myself." She smiled and pointed at me. "I mean, whatever happens, it can't be as bad as kissing that guy was."

"Hey, now!" I objected. "You never kissed me. Just my body. Sae was occupying it at the time, remember?"

"Oh, so you're saying you're a better kisser than Sae?"

"What? No, no, Sae's the best! It's just, uh, she wasn't used to my, uh, body, and –"

"Perhaps you two can leave your kiss comparisons for later," Aburatsubo interrupted. "It appears they are here." He pointed out to the street, where a familiar black limousine was pulling up.

"Right," Nakatomi said. "OK, this is it. Takakura-senpai and I will keep them occupied as long as possible, while you go call the police. Hurry!"

"I still don't think you should –"

She held Aburatsubo's hands and smiled up at him. "I'll be fine, Aya-kun. Don't worry. They don't have any grudge against me – they don't even know who I am, after all. But you need to go now, before they catch all three of us together."

Aburatsubo hesitated, then nodded and dashed off.

I looked at Nakatomi. "'Aya-kun'?" I asked.

She shrugged. "He and I have reached an understanding. But now it's time for the two of us to meet our fate."

We left the shade of the alcove and headed down toward the school gate, where Yamashita and three of his men had emerged from the limousine and were surveying the results of our earlier battle.

"What the hell happened here?" Yamashita was demanding. "These were some of my best men. And where's the fifth one?"

"He's back there," I called out, pointing back over my shoulder. "Don't worry, he'll be ok."

"YOU!" he yelled, on seeing me. "YOU BASTARD! HOW DID YOU –" He stopped, suddenly, when he noticed Nakatomi. "Oh, I get it. Apparently you have a whole stable of super-witch girlfriends. All lined up to do your dirty work. How on Earth someone like you managed to attract them – and now even my Matcha –"

"Ahem. I'm not his girlfriend," Nakatomi said. "No way!"

"Uh, right, Nakatomi-kun is her own person," I said. "And so is Mayumi. She's not yours. If she doesn't want to deal with you any more, you need to leave her alone!"

Yamashita spat. "You arrogant little pipsqueak! Don't think you can tell me what to do! Endo! Ikeda! Ogawa! Get them!"

The three with him started to move, but then stopped. "Uh, boss?" one of them said, "didn't you just say that girl with him is a super-witch? Remember what happened to us back at the mansion? With that other super-witch of his? And look at Ueda here and the others. Are they even alive?"

"And the boy," another of them continued, "maybe he's not much of a magician, but the way he moved back at the cram school, knocking me out of the air, there's something freaky about him."

Yamashita looked like he was about to explode. "What's the matter with you? You're afraid of a couple of high school students?"

"A couple of high school students who took out our whole strike squad," the third replied. "Not even Miss Matsura could do that. And you're too afraid to attack her directly."

"I'M NOT AFRAID OF HER!" Yamashita shouted. "I'M JUST –"

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?" an all-too-familiar voice chose that moment to interrupt. "Takeo, is this some stupid game of yours? No, wait, all these guys lying around – you've been drinking! Having a drunken orgy on school property!? When the principal finds out –"

Yamashita stared at, yes, Miyama, who had just come out of the school, carrying her portfolio. "Who the hell are you? Are you another of his super-witches?"

"Witch!?" Miyama was indignant. "How dare you! I am no witch; I am a very proper young lady. Who is going to report the lot of you right now!"

Yamashita looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled grimly. "Grab her," he told his men.

"You sure, boss?" the first said.

"She just said she's not a witch. Grab her!"

"She's not a witch, but, uh –"

"Just do it!"

Two of them gingerly took hold of her arms while the third pointed a wand at her head.

Miyama did not take kindly to this. "Unhand me, you drunken brutes! Perverts! Takeo! Tell them to let go of me at once!"

"Silence!" Yamashita said, which of course didn't work on Miyama, so he pointed a wand at her and said, "Kiyeskisu takeh nunn!"

Instant quiet. Hmm, I'm going to have to remember that spell, I thought.

Yamashita now turned to me. "All right, Takahashi or whatever your name was, you obviously know her. So here's the deal – throw down your wands and surrender, and she goes free. Otherwise ..."

Hmm, I thought, this was not what we had planned. But maybe this was better. I hadn't been too keen on Nakatomi being taken captive, but Miyama ... Plus, Miyama was from a rich, well-connected family, and would complain endlessly about this. No way would she tolerate the police letting him go again!

I just needed to stall long enough for the police to arrive. "OK, OK," I said. "Don't hurt her! See, I'm putting my wand down ..." I carefully laid it on the ground next to me. "And now, Nakatomi-kun is going to do the same ..."

Nakatomi looked at me questioningly. "It's ok," I whispered. "This'll work out. I think. Just take as much time as possible."

She lowered her wand to the ground, then took a step away.

I raised my hands up in the air. "OK, I'm going to come forward now." I took a few steps, dragging it out as much as I could.

"Her, too!" Yamashita said. "Your super-witch needs to surrender, too!"

"No, no, just take me!" I said. "I'm the one Mayumi knows! She's barely even met Nakatomi-kun!"

"No way! I'm not going to leave someone like her behind to attack me later!"

"It's ok, senpai," Nakatomi said. "I'll do it."

So the two of us slowly made our way over to them. It would be really convenient if the police showed up right now, I thought. Where were they, anyway? Tokyo police were pretty prompt, from all I'd heard. Was Aburatsubo having trouble convincing them? I found that hard to credit; he has the sort of manner that inspires trust in everyone. So what was taking so long?

Yamashita had the same question, sort of. "What's taking you two so long? Get over here now! Or your friend here gets it!"

Reluctantly, we started walking faster. We were almost to them when I finally heard what I had been waiting for, the wail of police sirens.

"No!" Yamashita said. "I can't let the police arrest me again! Grab those two and let's get out of here!"

"Which two?" one of the men asked.

"The two witches, of course. I don't care about the idiot girl!"

I can't explain exactly why, but I really didn't want them to take Nakatomi. Part of it, of course, was that our club members are a sacred trust, that it would be a failure of my leadership (even if I was no longer officially the leader) to let anything happen to her. Especially now that she had declared she was going to be the club president next year. And part of it was, I don't know, I felt I owed her for being Sae's friend for so long, even if she wasn't exactly on the best terms with me.

Whatever the reason, I determined to make a swap. In the confusion as they rounded us up and ran us out to the limousine, I took advantage of my still-present super-speed to shove Nakatomi to one side, push Miyama into her place, and return to where I had been, all without them exactly noticing.

So it was only after we had all been crammed into the back of the limousine and it had taken off, that Yamashita looked back from the front seat and said, "You idiots! You grabbed the wrong girl!"

"Huh?" the guy holding Miyama said. "How did that happen? I was sure I had the other one."

"Well, it doesn't matter now. We're not going to go back for her. Akagi, get us out of here!"

"You got it, boss," the driver replied, and off we went.

"You'll never get away!" I said. "The police will block off the streets and stop you. You're better off surrendering now before it gets worse!"

Yamashita laughed. "We'll see about that. Akagi, if you please."

The driver nodded, then stomped down on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, faster and faster, heading straight toward an intersection. One where the light was red and the cross-traffic dense.

"No!" I shouted. "We're going to hit that –"

Just then, the driver pushed a button on the dash. I felt a sudden wrenching sensation, everything went blurry, then sharpened again – to an entirely different scene.

Not that this one was much better. The truck we were about to hit was replaced by a – huh? – building? Except we swerved and went through the building instead – it had a tunnel?

I remembered an article I had read once about a building like that. "That was the Gate Tower Building?" I asked. "We're in Osaka?"

"Smart kid," Yamashita said. "You're finally ending up where Matcha was supposed to take you last week."

Miyama had been vainly trying to speak all this time. All of a sudden, her spell wore off and she burst out with, "The alien transporter! You're the real government agents!"

Yamashita was understandably puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

"It's not my fault! He used it on me without telling! I never asked to go to Hawaii! He's the one you should arrest, not me! I'm innocent! Yes, I put that stuff in my manga, but it all came from him! I'll take it out! I'll never tell anyone! I'll –"

She stopped suddenly, as Yamashita had hit her with another silence spell. He grunted. "I changed my mind. I was going to just drop her off somewhere, since we didn't need her anymore, but I think now we'll imprison her with you. That should be a decent start at punishing you for whatever it was you did to turn my Matcha."

And that's what happened. We followed what seemed like a convoluted route through the streets of Osaka, at length breaking out onto a road which ran along the waterfront for quite a distance. Along the way, I did ask about how they managed teleporting a whole car, but Yamashita just laughed and said, "The wand is not the height of magical technology, kid. You've got a lot to learn."

Finally, we arrived at a nondescript warehouse. "Your new home," Yamashita said. "At least until Matcha surrenders. And don't think you can just pop yourself out. This has a double magic seal around it. Nobody gets in or out without the key."

We were marched into the building, and past various pieces of equipment I couldn't quite make out in the gloom. Finally, we were unceremoniously dumped into a small windowless room, with the door locked behind us. I looked around, and all there was in the room was a single chair and a bed.

"Your choice," I said to Miyama, indicating the two items.

She mouthed what was no doubt something scathing in reply, but sat down on the chair, then continued her silent invective.

I sat on the bed and said, "It'll take a few more minutes for that to wear off. You may want to save your cursing me out until then."

This could have gone better, I thought. What to do now? I assumed the "magic seal" was like the one that had been around Ryoko's warehouse, and no ordinary magic could penetrate it. I'd need Sae-level strength to have any chance to teleport out. And even if I had been showing some flashes of that recently, it certainly wasn't something I could count on. Especially without a wand, and the only available prospect of the, uh, Kiss Express being ... Yes, yes, Sae doesn't want me to say "disgusting" or anything like that, so let's just say, not my first choice. Or second, or third, or ...

Hmm, my legs still felt capable of super-speed. Could I somehow get the guards to open the door, then rush past them and get out? Except the door to the outside would likely still be locked, and no way would they open that for me. Also, I'd be leaving Miyama behind, which, considering it was really my fault she was here to begin with ...

I needed help from Sae and the others. But how? Communication via magical means was no doubt blocked. And they'd hardly let me make a phone call. Perhaps if I –

There was an audible sigh from the chair. Audible? Uh-oh. I braced myself for the coming tirade.

Instead, Miyama said, in an ordinary conversational tome, "They're not really government agents, are they?"

"Those guys? Uh, no, they're not. You're not angry?"

"Of course I'm angry. But if you tell me the truth, I might not be angry with you. I deserve the truth, don't I?"

Now it was my turn to sigh. "Yeah. OK, I'll level with you. Yamashita and the others – they're part of this secret organization, the House of Mystery. It's the rival to Ryoko's House of Spirits. There's some kind of family conflict between the two which goes back a long ways. Now, we got mixed up in this when I met Mayumi – she's the one I introduced you to earlier this week –"

"You mean that arrogant bitch?"

"Oh, no, she may come on a little strong, but she's really a nice person when you get to know her."

"I highly doubt that. But go on."

"OK, Mayumi is from a third branch of the family, but she had been working for Yamashita's side as a sort of spy on Ryoko's house. However, I managed to get her to change sides, or at least give up working for Yamashita. That got him really angry, so to hide from him, she's been living with me this past week –"

"L-living with you? You mean – you're sleeping with that floozy?!"

"No, no! She's just – at my house, I mean. That's all."

"That's all? So you haven't been in bed with her?"

"In b-bed?" I stammered. "Well, sort of, but it was only for the cameras, and –"

"Cameras? WHAT!? You were making PORNOGRAPHY!?"

"What? No, no! Not at all! They're shooting this reality series about the, uh, magic trick stuff, and you know how they like to spice these things up. But none of it's real or anything."

She shook her head. "Reality series? I don't quite follow, but never mind that. While all this family drama is no doubt dreadfully fascinating, it doesn't explain how they have a transporter, too. Did they steal it from you? Or, more likely, did you steal it from them?"

"No, no, neither of those." I paused. How could I explain it to her? I tried, "Actually, the teleportation isn't from the aliens. Knowledge of it long predates them."

"Oh, I see. Area 51, right?"

"Uh, what?"

"Area 51. In the United States. You know, with the UFOs and all? Roswell?"

"Oh, right. Though it's much older even than that. Some of it even back to the ancient world."

"Ooh, ancient astronauts! Yes! I knew it! So that's how they built the pyramids, right?"

"I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure those were done with human power and not magic."

"Magic? Are you back on that stuff again?"

Oops. Forgot about not using the 'm' word. But then I thought of, "Oh, you know, it's like Arthur C. Clarke said, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' May as well call it that."

"Fine, fine. So they have their own transporter. What about yours? Aren't you going to use it to get us out of here?"

"Unfortunately, with the barriers they have set up around this place, I don't see how I can. Sae might be able to manage it, but unless they make a mistake, or I can get some kind of assistance ..."

"I see. So we're stuck here for now?"

"I guess so. I'm trying to come up with something, but ..."

"In that case, why don't I do a little sketching?" She pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil from her portfolio. "Now go ahead and drop your pants, and we'll get started."

"Drop my pants? No, we went through this already, that sort of thing is only for Sae –"

"Oh, really? When you just told me you stripped down for that horrid girl you only met a week ago? You'll do it for her, but not for someone who's been your friend from childhood?"

"Uh, 'friend'?"

She looked at me crossly. "What are you trying to insinuate?"

"Nothing, really, it's just that –"

I was interrupted by a ringing sound. "Just a minute," Miyama said, and pulled something out of her bag.

"Wait, you have a cell phone?" I asked. (This was all back when cell phones were rare, really just the province of the rich.)

"Well of course, I'm not some poor peasant. Excuse me." She answered the phone, "Hello? Oh, yes, Chiyoko. Please hold dinner for me. Yes, tell Mother I've finally got my model lined up, so I'll be working late. Ta ta!" She turned back to me. "Now then, where were we? Oh, yes, you were going to strip down for me."

"Hold on a minute, could I borrow your phone? I need to call Sae."

"Sae? What, you need to get your girlfriend's permission first? What kind of man are you?"

I ignored that and dialed Sae's number. Her sister Saki answered. "Takeo? Oh, thank goodness! Sae's friend from school called and said you were missing, and she ran off to help look for you. She'll be so relieved that you're all right!"

"Uh, yeah. Where is she now? How can I get hold of her?"

"Sorry, I don't really know. But when she comes back, I'll be sure to tell her you called."

"Thanks. Oh, tell her to call this number," and I gave her the cell phone number.

I tried Nakatomi's house, but her mother said she hadn't come home yet. No answer from Aburatsubo or the school, so I took a deep breath and called home.

"No, Mayumi isn't home yet," my mother replied in answer to my question. "Isn't she with you?"

"Ah, no, I had to, uh, run an errand. You wouldn't happen to have her cell phone number, would you?" Somehow, I had never thought to ask Mayumi for it.

"No, sorry. Takeo, what's going on? We just saw the news that there was some big fight at your school, that five men tried to attack this girl, but she defeated them all? They're calling her a '21st century onna bugeisha.' And I think it's someone you know – that friend of your girlfriend? The one with the short hair? Is your school really that violent?"

"No, no, of course not. You know how the news likes to sensationalize things. I'm sure it was nothing like that."

It went on, and it was only with some difficulty that I managed to extract myself from the call. "I'm having trouble getting hold of anyone," I said to Miyama.

"I can see that. Why is it so essential?"

"Because Sae and the others are our only hope to get out of here!"

"Oh, in that case, fine. Here, give me that." She took back the cell phone and pushed a speed-dial number. "Rinpun! Kojin with you? Good. I need you two to find the mop-headed girl. You know who I mean. She's probably with the others. No, no, you don't need to be secretive about it. Just find her and – wait a minute. Takeo, what should they do when they find her?"

"Uh, tell her we're at the warehouse in Osaka – Mayumi knows about it. So, get the group together, and call us back, and we'll figure out what to do."

After Miyama relayed the message, we sat waiting for what seemed an interminably long time, but in reality was probably only 30 minutes, until Miyama's phone rang again. "Hello, Rinpun? Have you found – Oh, it's you." She thrust the phone at me. "It's that girl."

From her tone I voice, I knew who she meant. "Takeo!" the expected Mayumi said when I answered the phone. "We're here!"

"Here? What do you mean, 'here'?"

"We're here in Osaka, across the street from the warehouse. All of us."

"All of you?"

"Yes, your Magic Club, plus Ryoko and me, plus these two weird little guys who insisted on coming along. Sae and I had to do the kissing to have enough power to bring everyone here. Hope you don't mind."

"Sae and you ... kissing? Uh, that's – that's ok. That's fine."

"You're thinking about a three-way now, aren't you?"

"What? No, no, of course not! Well, maybe a little."

"Don't get your hopes up. Anyway, we've come up with a plan to get you out. It's a little dicey, but I think we can get it to work. I told Mr. Yamashita I'd surrender to him back at their mansion in Tokyo, so he and most of his men are heading there now. In the meantime, we're going to try the transfer spell to swap you out. We'll have to get the timing right, though."

"Timing?"

"Yeah, see, the setup here is a lot tougher than the Spirits warehouse. That one only had a single stationary barrier. Now, barriers like these have a weak spot at their origin, so Sae must have been able to concentrate all her power on that and swap you and Ryoko through. Here, though, there are two barriers, one inside the other, plus they're rotating, so it's hard to make a path through their weak spots. But every 15 minutes, the two weak spots line up, so we're going to try having all of us together force the transfer then. That's in about three minutes, so get ready."

"OK. You'll get both of us then?"

"No, sorry, we're going to have enough trouble getting one of you. So we'll do you first, then 15 minutes later get your annoying friend."

"She's not going to like that."

"Too bad for her. We have to do it that way, because we don't have an object to focus on for her. But we'll be swapping in Sae's bear, so she'll need to hold onto that for when we do the second swap."

As I expected, Miyama was none too pleased when I told her the plan.

"What? You're going to abandon me here!?"

"Just for 15 minutes. Like I said, they can only teleport one person at a time."

"Yes, but it should be ladies first. Everyone knows that."

"Yes, well, unfortunately, they don't have anything to focus the, uh, transporter on for you. But they'll send in Jeff-kun when they take me out, so you can just hold onto him when it's your turn."

"Jeff-kun? They're sending in another guy? I'll be trapped in here with a strange man?"

"No, no, Jeff-kun is Sae's teddy bear."

"Teddy bear? Isn't that a little juvenile?"

"Jeff-kun is no ordinary teddy bear, I can tell you that much. But now it's almost time, so let me get ready."

I stood up and braced myself for, well, whatever. Usually these transfers didn't feel like much of anything, but getting pulled through two barriers? That could be traumatic.

It was a relief then, a minute later, when a shimmering view of the outdoors appeared, solidified, and Sae stepped into view, all without me feeling so much as a pinprick. "You did it!" I cried, embracing her. "Thank goodness! I've missed you so much! Now we only have to –" I stopped when I noticed my legs were feeling suspiciously cold. "Uh oh, I think I might have become a girl again. Except I'm seeing you, so how –?"

Sae looked embarrassed. "No, you're not a girl. You just lost your pants, is all. I'm afraid they're what I was focusing on for the exchange. Because I remembered how scratchy they were, and ..."

"Oh. Oh well, no big deal, at least I'm out and –" Which is when I noticed I was not out, but still in the room, pantsless, with Miyama and now Sae. "Oops, looks like the transfer went the wrong way."

"I'm sorry!" Sae said. "I don't know how it happened, except maybe I kept worrying about how you were in here, and I must have somehow decided to come in to, um, see or something."

"So you two goofed up again," Miyama observed. "Figures. At least Takeo has his pants off now. Since we're apparently going to be here for a while, let's have that underwear off too, and we'll get started. Your girlfriend's here if you still need her permission."

"Underwear? Takeo, what's this about?" Sae looked disturbed.

"Oh, nothing, Miyama-san's just on again about –"

My explanation was interrupted by Miyama's phone ringing. "Hello?" she said. "Oh, you again. You really blew it, you know? Now there are three of us stuck in here! ... What? They want to do what? Let me talk to them! ... Rinpun! What do you think you're up to? You're not some action hero! ... Well, yes, I suppose you're sneaky enough, but I can't have you going and –" She stopped suddenly and looked askance at her phone. "Why that little – He hung up on me!"

"What's going on?" I asked. "What's Rinpun doing?"

"Those two think they're James Bond or something! They're getting beamed through the first barrier, then Kojin's going to create a distraction somehow while Rinpun gets the keys and opens the doors. How they're going to manage all that –"

"Oh, no!" Sae said. "They're going with plan B!"

I asked the obvious question. "What's plan B?"

"Well, if the transfer spell couldn't get through both barriers, Mayumi said that this warehouse had some kind of 'magical engines' that Yamashita had been working on for the grand finale for the TV show. She wasn't quite sure how they worked, but she figured if we could get through the first barrier to them and set them off, that would provide enough of a distraction that we could get through the second barrier. But Nanaka asked what was it these 'engines' did, could they just blow everything up, and Mayumi wasn't sure."

"I see." I thought for a second, then said, "I don't see any choice. We're going to have to try to break out of here ourselves and stop them. Do you have your wand, Sae?"

"Well, of course I do," she said. "See, I used it to get in here. Even if I didn't quite mean to."

"Oh, right. OK, I read something about using magic to open locks, and I figure it's worth a try. We'll have to share your wand, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't," she said, smiling at me.

"Yeah, it looks like I couldn't last a whole week without you," I said, smiling back. "I'm sorry to drag you in like this, but I'm also happy you're here."

"I feel the same way."

"You mean you're sorry to be dragged in, or happy you're here?"

She smiled even more broadly. "Maybe both."

"Would you two lovebirds cut it out and get us out of here?" Miyama chose that moment to demand.

"Yes, yes, we'll try," I said. Sae and I moved over to the door and grasped her wand together. "OK, first we have to do the visualization spell to see the other side of the door and figure out how the lock is set up. Then we can hopefully move the bolt on that side and so unlock the door. Ready?"

She nodded and took on that cute determined look I keep mentioning. We repeated the spell, and I tried directing our view to the outside of the door. But try as I might, we could only get halfway through it before we were stopped. "The barrier must run right through the middle of the door," I said. "We need more power. But this is a delicate spell, so I'm not quite sure how to manage it."

"We have to try," Sae said. "I can't let those two get in trouble because of my mistake."

"Sae –" I said. "Don't call it a mistake. Nobody else has ever penetrated two barriers like that before. It's too much to expect everything to have gone perfectly the first time."

"I never expect anything to go perfectly where I'm involved," she replied, wrinkling her nose adorably.

"That's odd," I said, "because to me, you're perfect."

"W-what? No, don't say –"

Quickly I repeated, "Kushushu kasukes! Igomas tez kasukes! Towindour tez kasukes!"

As I had expected, Sae's momentarily flustered state put a surge of energy into the spell, and our field of view pushed hard against the barrier, slowly, inexorably forcing its way through the door, until at last the bolt on the other side pulled into view. I tried moving it, but it wouldn't budge, obviously locked in place. All right, fine, I'd have to do the lock.

I moved my view back slightly so I could see the inside of the lock. The instructions I had read said this was the "easiest lock-picking ever," because you could see exactly what you were doing. Hopefully they were right. OK, find the pins – there. There were one, two, three, ... six of them? Ugh, this would take a while. Back to the first one, I just had to move it so the split was right at the border of the cylinder – there. Oops, it slipped back. Oh, right, I had to try to turn the cylinder a little too, so that the pin would catch on the edge of its hole and stay in place – there, got it. On to the next ... and the next ... and finally I got the sixth one, and the cylinder, which I had been pressing on the whole time, turned a bunch. I kept turning it until I heard a click and, yes! the bolt was all the way back now. Done!

Except not done, as the door still didn't open. Oh, right, the latch. There was no handle on our side, so I'd have to do that from the other side as well. I moved my view down to it, and fortunately, there was no lock on this. Just had to move it, and we'd be out. "You're doing a great job, Sae," I said. "I've almost got it. Just have to move this last piece and –"

And suddenly there was an explosion, and the entire door burst into a shower of splinters. "Uh, I guess we don't have to worry about the lock any more," I said.

"I'm sorry!" Sae said. "I don't know how I could have done that!"

I looked through the new opening and saw – "Sae, I don't think it was you that did that."

"Then how did it – oh."

What we saw, laid out in the vast expanse of the open warehouse, was a bizarre tableau. Over to the left, the two guards, who had come rushing toward us when the door exploded, stopped, looked terrified, and turned and ran to the front door and tried desperately to open it.

Over to the right was the reason for their terror. Rinpun and Kojin were mounted on what looked like a float from some nightmarish version of a Brazilian carnival. It was apparently a tractor which was festooned with giant wands sticking out in all directions. A bank of a dozen especially stout ones projected out from the front. Miyama's two flunkies were pushing buttons and pulling levers on the console in front of them, causing the tractor to lurch back and forth, and spell blasts to shoot out from one or the other of the wands. Most of the spells seemed no more than fireworks, showers of sparks and smoke which didn't hurt anything, but an occasional one blew a hole through the walls or ceiling of the building.

"Guys, that's enough!" I shouted. "Let's get out of here!"

But over the noise of the machine and the explosions, they didn't hear me, and continued gleefully playing around with the controls. Finally, something they pushed caused the machine to stop moving and let out a deep groan, like a giant with a killer hangover. The groaning continued, gradually rising in pitch and volume until the giant, rather than groaning, was shrieking in terror.

The noise stopped suddenly. Miyama began, "Well, at least that annoying thing is over –" when there was a rumble which shook the entire building and every single wand on the contraption started glowing with an unearthly light.

That was enough for me. I yanked Miyama and Sae over to me and rattled off, "MORABI DEOR! CADI DEOR! LAXI DEOR!" As soon as the barrier formed around us, everything happened.

I'd like to tell you just what exactly "everything" was, but between the red glow from my barrier, the smoke from the previous fireworks, and the general chaos which followed, I couldn't really see much. There was a blinding flash of light, visible even through the barrier, followed by a deafening clap of thunder, followed by ... snow?

Or at least a steady stream of sparkling particles of something or other started falling gently down on our barrier, flashing briefly as they bounced off. They didn't seem like much of a threat, so with everything else quiet, I decided to let the barrier down.

Whereupon I discovered the "snow" was ash, sparkling in the moonlight. Moonlight? I looked up and saw there was no roof. In fact, the entire upper part of the building – everything above three meters or so – was gone. Below that was a pile of rubble, covered over by a thin layer of the snowy ash.

Miyama and Sae also stood up and surveyed the devastation. "Wait!" Miyama said. "Rinpun and Kojin – are they – are they –" Her voice caught and she stopped abruptly, seeming on the verge of sobbing.

Huh? Since when did Miyama care about someone other than herself? No, no, that was unfair. Despite the way she treated me, she was human, after all. I sought to reassure her, "I'm sure they're all right. Yamashita wouldn't have made anything which hurt the operator. We just have to find them in all this."

I carefully picked my way through the debris to where the machine had been. I found it mostly intact, though with its wands scattered all around and everything covered in the white ash. Rinpun was sprawled across the rear of the tractor, and Kojin on the ground a little ways away, both also white with ash. "You guys ok?"

I got a moan in response from Rinpun and nothing from Kojin. Hmm, not good. I held out Sae's wand over Rinpun, put my hand on his forehead, and repeated, "Korigete. Konlineate. Qurate!" I was soon rewarded with the blue glow, which moved across his entire body. His breathing, which had been shallow and erratic, smoothed out and deepened. When I was satisfied with the result, I moved over to Kojin and repeated the procedure. Figuring he was in worse shape, I powered it up as much as I dared. When he was breathing normally, I stood up again and addressed Miyama, who, I noted, had been right near me the whole time.

"They should be all right," I said. "Shaken up, but no worse than that."

"What did you do to them?" she asked. "This is that 'magic' you were going on about, isn't it?"

"Uh, sort of, I guess."

"Thank you," she said, almost at a whisper. Then, unexpectedly, she hugged me and repeated, "Thank you."

"Uh, you're welcome." I managed to work my way out of her embrace, and turned to see Sae looking concerned. "Don't worry, they'll be fine," I told her. "I just did the healing as a precaution."

"I know, but what about the other ones? The two guards? What happened to them?"

"Good question. Let's go see."

With more than a little difficulty, Sae and I managed to maneuver around, or occasionally climb over, the piles of junk, and made our way to the front door. There, however, we found no sign of the guards. We poked all around the vicinity and came up empty.

"They must have gotten out," Sae said.

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied. Either that or were disintegrated, but I of course did not say that part out loud. I went and checked the door. "Unfortunately, they left this locked. And if there's a key around here somewhere, we'll never find it in this mess. I guess we better try visualizing the lock again, and see if we can undo it."

"Um, Takeo?"

"Yes, what?"

"There's not any roof here anymore. All we have to do is get some brooms and we can fly out."

"Oh, right. Those shouldn't be too hard to find."

And, fortunately, they weren't. We rounded up a couple of pushbrooms and head back to Miyama and her crew. Rinpun and Kojin were up, leaning against the tractor.

"How are you guys doing?" I asked. "Anything hurt anywhere?"

"No, we feel great," Rinpun replied. "Right, Kojin?"

"Right. And that thing was awesome! Too bad we must have hit the self-destruct or something. Though even that was awesome, until it kicked us off."

"That was magic, wasn't it? Real magic?" Rinpun asked. "Are we going to learn how to do that kind of thing?"

I laughed. "Sorry, that's beyond my level. But we're going to show you something else, right Sae?"

"Right!" And we held out our brooms.

"What?" Miyama said. "You expect us to clean up this place? No way!"

"No, no, we're going to use them to fly out of here. Rinpun, Kojin, you come with me. Miyama-san, you'll go with Sae."

"I'm not going with her!" Miyama objected. "The way she messes everything up? No way!"

"No, don't worry, Sae's great at flying."

"I don't care. I demand ex-club president privilege!"

Sigh. So it was that Sae and the two guys were on one broom, and Miyama and I on the other. Sae didn't have any particular issues once we got the three of them distributed properly on her broom. Well, no issue other than Kojin, sitting behind her, kept sneaking peeks at her butt. Even so, in only a minute, they were ready to go.

Miyama was a different matter. First, she didn't want to sit behind me on the broom because "Ladies first," then she didn't want to straddle it because "unladylike," then she found she couldn't stay balanced sidesaddle, then even straddling she had trouble and demanded I support her, then she got upset when I reached around her and grabbed the broom in front of her because "Pervert! Get your hands out from between my legs!" then ...

Somehow I finally got things arranged so there was only a minimal amount of grumbling, and then with a quick hop over the remnant of the wall, we were over and out. Where we had a little trouble finding a landing spot, what with all the debris scattered about. Finally, figuring there was no traffic at this hour, I suggested to Sae that we just set down in the middle of the street, which we managed without incident. The rest of the Magic Club then emerged from wherever they had been hiding to greet us. "You made it!" Ryoko cried. "We were getting kind of worried there after all the explosions. Good thing you're all safe."

I was surprised to see Aikawa was part of the group, even more so when I realized she was just wearing a bikini, with a light coverup on top.

"Senpai, look, we're dressed alike!" she said. "But why are you in a swimsuit, too?"

"Swimsuit? Oh, no, I just lost my pants, is all. But what about you?"

"Oh, I was doing a midnight swimsuit shoot in Guam when they brought me back here. They said they needed my power, too. Good thing it's not as cold here as in Tokyo!"

"Yeah, though I think I'd still like my pants back. Do you know what happened to them?"

She thought for a moment. "I guess that's what showed up when we tried the transfer. But I'm afraid we just left them there when we ran off to hide, after things started blowing up."

She led me across the street to an area behind some bushes. It was fairly dark there, but after some rooting around, I managed to come up with my pants. Or what was left of them, at least. They were torn in several places and had been pretty well trampled over.

"I guess these didn't last out the school year after all," I said. "Oh, well. Let me check the pockets, though."

Fortunately, my wallet was intact, as were my keys. There was one other thing, though –

"I wouldn't trust those anymore, senpai," Aikawa said. "And I don't think Sae should, either."

"Uh, yeah, I think I can let these go." And I tossed the remnants of the Funabashi condoms into a nearby trash container.

"Aren't those different from the ones you had before? Did you use all of the others up already? I'm impressed!"

"Uh, not exactly. Let's just forget about the subject, ok?"

"Of course, senpai, of course." Though her smile indicated she wasn't about to do that.

We all gathered together again, and quickly caught each other up on what had happened. "I'm glad everyone's all right," I said. "But I'm still not sure what we're going to do about Yamashita. He's not going to be happy about the warehouse."

"Whatever we decide on better be quick," Mayumi said. "Because I'm pretty sure that's his car driving this way. He must have heard about what happened back here."

Sure enough, off in the distance, an all-too-familiar black limousine was barreling down the road toward us. "Yikes!" I looked around and saw one of the giant wands from the device that had blown up was lying near us. "Quick, everyone, let's use this to stop him!"

"How?" Nakatomi asked.

"Uh, let's see, maybe we could, uh ..."

"Let's transform the car!" Sae cried.

"Good idea!" I said. "C'mon, let's lift it up and do the spell together."

Together, we hoisted the enormous wand and pointed it at the oncoming car. "What are we going to transform it into?" Nakatomi asked.

"Uh, I don't know, whatever Sae wants. OK?"

"Me? But I don't know what would be good!"

"Anything you want would be good! Let's do it now!"

And together, we intoned,

"Exsuarte bei to en! Towass!"

The car briefly glowed, then took on a weird, bumpy appearance before collapsing into pieces. Huh? What had Sae chosen to do to it? One of the pieces tumbled forward and stopped near my feet, providing the answer to my question. It was a teddy bear. She had converted the car into a pile of teddy bears.

The men that had been in the car now lay sprawled across a field of those teddy bears. Before I could react, though, they got up and Yamashita cried, "Get those kids! Now!"

"Run!" I said. "Everyone split up and run! I'll distract them!"

This is when I found out just how long my super-speed lasted. I was dashing right through the middle of Yamashita's men when the energy suddenly left my legs and I half-stumbled as I slowed to a normal pace. Two of Yamashita's men quickly grabbed me. "Got him!" one of them said.

Yamashita looked me over. "What happened to your pants? Wait, no, you weren't, with my Matcha – No!"

"No, we weren't," I said. "But if we had, it would have been Mayumi's choice. She's not your possession!"

"We'll see about that," he replied. "But I've had just about enough of you. If I didn't need you to get Matcha back ... Wait a minute, it looks like my men caught another one of your – huh, who's this one?"

Yamashita's remaining two men were walking back with Aikawa in their grasp. "The others got away, but we managed to nab this one," one of them said.

"Sorry, senpai," Aikawa said. "I can't really run in the heels they had me wearing for the shoot."

Yamashita noticed her attire. "Now I see who you were doing the hanky-panky with. Honestly, you randy teenagers, can't keep it in the pants for more than a few minutes."

Aikawa giggled. "He has you pegged, senpai."

I was about to object, when there was a flash of light seeming to come from the sky. I looked up and saw Aburatsubo and Nakatomi riding in on brooms, that were also carrying – huh? The reporters from back when we were fighting the aliens? Minowa and Yoshimoto? They snapped several more pictures and waved to us. "Thanks!" Minowa said. "The bears are a nice touch. See you!"

"Huh? What was that about?" Yamashita asked.

"Uh, boss?" one of his men said. "Think about it. We're holding two half-dressed teenagers in a pile of kids' toys ... What with everything that happened in the last week, how is this going to look?"

"My god, you're right. We can't let those pictures get out! After them!"

"He's right, but I'd suggest you all stay right here," another voice said.

"Why should we? And who said that, anyway?"

"I did." A man dressed in a police uniform stepped out of the shadows, followed by five others, who quickly encircled us. "Yashiro Yamashita, you're under arrest. For kidnapping, false imprisonment, and quite likely a host of perverted stuff I don't even want to think about yet."

Minowa and Yoshimoto chose that moment to appear again, this time on foot, taking more photos of the arrest. After Yamashita and his men had been hauled off, and the police had gotten preliminary statements from Aikawa and me (I mostly acted confused when they asked about stuff I couldn't really explain, like how we had gotten to Osaka so quickly), I went over and asked the reporters, "How come you two are here, anyway? How did you find out about all this?"

"We didn't, exactly," Minowa said. "We were in Osaka on another story, then when we heard the explosion we rushed down here and met up with your friends. When they told us what was up, we figured we should pop in and get photographic evidence. Yamashita has a lot of connections, even more so here than in Tokyo. But once these pictures get published, no connections in the world will save him."

"I'm not so keen on having pictures of me in my underwear in the paper."

"We all have to make sacrifices for the greater good sometimes. And this is really for your friends, isn't it?"

"Uh, I guess, but –"

"But in the meantime, you'd like some pants, I know. Yoshimoto, you're about his size. You have an extra pair of pants in your suitcase?"

"Well, yeah, but –"

"Perfect, lend it to him."

We walked over to their car, which was nearby, and which also turned out to be where everyone else was gathered.

"I hope you don't feel we abandoned you, Takeo," Aburatsubo said. "But when we found the reporters were here and the police were coming, we decided the best we could do for you was facilitate their journey."

"No, no, that's fine," I said, though to be honest I did feel a little miffed. "What matters is that we won, not whether we used any heroics in doing so."

"Oh, but you were heroic, Takeo," Sae said. "You faced up to Yamashita and his men time after time. Alone, even! And you did it all for us. You're – you're my hero."

And we, ok, we kissed. Right there. In front of everyone. There was some groaning, some applause, and a flash of light, as Yoshimoto took another picture. Fortunately, it's not one that ever made it into the paper, as he sent it to me instead. I have it right here with me, though I keep it in my desk drawer rather than on top of my desk for obvious reasons. I'm quite a sight – filthy, bedraggled, wearing pants that don't really fit (way too short). But Sae somehow, despite all she had been through, is looking absolutely angelic. It's the one moment that made this whole messy, dangerous, traumatic experience worthwhile.

But that was just a moment, and then we had to get everybody back to where they came from. We used various means, but it still took a while. Finally, we were down to Sae, Mayumi and me. Which made things a little awkward.

"OK, uh, Sae, I'm afraid we're going to have to, uh ..."

"Drop me off and you go home with Mayumi, I know. I don't mind. Actually, I think it's good Mayumi is staying with you. She's like the big sister you never had."

"I heard that!" Mayumi said. "And sorry, Sae, I've only had a week with him. That wasn't nearly enough time to finish straightening him out. You're going to have to handle the rest yourself."

Sae giggled. "I think I'm the one who needs straightening out, not him."

"I don't know, I like it when we're both a little crooked," I said. "It seems to suit us."

"Well, then, how about you two crooks take us home," Mayumi said. "I promise, no detours by way of Mount Kisokoma."

And so we did, riding the Kiss Express all the way to Sae's front door. Saki practically leaped on top of us when we opened the door. "Sae, Sae, where have you been all this time? It's after midnight! Your boyfriend called, and – oh, he's right here. But what happened to him? And who's this other person?"

"Hi, I'm Mayumi. Mayumi Matsura. I'm sort of Takeo's honorary big sister. Don't worry about him; he had a little incident, but he'll be fine, right, Takeo?"

"Uh, right, I'm fine. And I'm sorry to have kept Sae out so late on a school night. I promise not to do that again!"

After mollifying Saki a little more, Mayumi and I made our way home. Simply on foot this time.

"If you're going to be my little brother, I've got a whole backlog of picking on you to take care of," she said.

"Maybe we could skip that part."

"You're no fun."

"True, but I get it from my parents. I guarantee they're not going to be fun at all about me coming home at – yikes, it's almost 2am?"

And they weren't. "Takeo, what's going on? Where have you been? What happened to you? Why are you wearing those pants?" Before I could come up with anything my mom added, "And we need the truth, too. Your sister says you're mixed up in some funny business with that perverted man, Mayumi's uncle? And that she met up with the police at that cram school you're going to? Because there was apparently some confrontation there involving somebody who looked like you? And she told them about your TV thing, but when they checked there, the studio said you never showed up? And –"

"Wait, Takako tried to send them to the TV studio? No wonder they took so long to show up at the school! I should never have told her about – uh, never mind."

"'Never mind'!? I certainly do mind, young man. What have you gotten yourself into? And pulling your little sister in too!?"

"No, no, I was just, uh, just warning her about Yamashita and all. And that's what was happening – he went after some other girls at our school, the ones in our club. But we helped the police capture him, and they're not going to let him go this time. All of that took a while, of course, which is why we're so late. But protecting my club members – that's my duty. I had to do it."

Things went on from there, but you get the idea. Finally, I stumbled into bed and instantly fell asleep.

When I woke the next morning, it seemed strangely bright. Had I left my light on overnight? Sitting up, I saw, no, it was broad daylight. Huh? In February? I checked the clock and – yikes, it was almost noon!

"Mom, why didn't you get me up? I've missed half the day already!"

"I tried to, but you were dead to the world. And then I found what had happened to your pants ..." She held up the torn pair, which I saw she had cleaned and started to repair. "Takeo, are you all right? Should we take you to the hospital? I mean, if your pants were like this ..."

"Oh, no, I'm fine. I wasn't wearing the pants when all of that happened. Sae had, uh, with my pants, taken them – Er, wait, that is, I mean –"

She held up a hand. "No, please, stop, I get the idea. I don't need to hear anything more. Just don't tell your father about this, all right?" She sighed. "I knew this day was coming, but I didn't expect it so soon. Now get yourself together and head off to school. I'll write you a note."

At school, I was sent to the vice principal's office. Kimura-sensei and Kubo-sensei were there, along with Kobayashi-sensei, the school counselor.

"I'm sorry to be so late," I began. "I'm afraid last night I –"

"Yes, we are aware of what happened last night," Kimura-sensei said. "Your classmates, the police, the news people, all have kept us informed. Please, Mr. Takakura, have a seat."

I sat down gingerly, unsure of what was going to happen. "Have you seen today's paper?" he asked.

"Uh, no, I got up late and –"

"Please, take a look."

He showed me the front of the local section, emblazoned with the headline, "'Kung-fu Girl' Defeats Horde of Attackers – Modern-Day Onna Bugeisha Unfazed by Pervert CEO's Men." Below was a picture of Nakatomi, with the five guys we had knocked out at the school in handcuffs behind her, surrounded by police.

"Yeah, Nakatomi-san is pretty amazing," I said. "She'll be a great club president next year."

"I'm sure she will be, but that is not the point. We spoke with Miss Nakatomi this morning, and she assured us you were at least as responsible for the defeat of those men as she was, if not more so."

"Oh, well, I don't know. I mean, I maybe helped a little, but –"

"You needn't bother with false modesty. Miss Miyama also was effusive in her praise, saying you 'saved her life.' Indeed, it seems you are making something of a career of rescuing your female classmates. Which is admirable, certainly, but it is also a bit disconcerting that our school should be in need of such a service."

"That was just because of this Yamashita affair. With him arrested, that should all be over."

"So we hope. But I'd like to address a slightly different matter. The newspaper sent us a second photo, one which they have not published, and indeed may never publish, because – well, let's take a look." He then pulled out, yep, the picture of Aikawa and me being held by Yamashita's men in a field of teddy bears.

Kobayashi-sensei, who had been silent until then, now spoke up. "Takeo, do you think you could tell us what's going on in this photo? Why are the two of you dressed – or rather, undressed like this? What's with all the teddy bears? If you're not comfortable talking about it in front of the others, we can have them leave the room and you just tell me."

"What? Oh, no, no, nothing that bad happened. We were, uh, helping the police to track down Yamashita and his men, but, uh, he found us first. I tried distracting them so the others could get away, but unfortunately Aikawa-san was wearing heels so she couldn't run. But the police and the reporters turned up right away, so it wasn't a problem."

"I see. And the bears? And your state of dress?"

"The bears?" I cast around for some explanation. Ah, this would do. "I'm not exactly sure, but Yamashita does run some sort of trading company. Maybe it's something they're importing? And Aikawa-san is a model, you know, so she had just been doing a shoot and hadn't had time to change back."

"It was really your lack of pants I meant."

"Oh, right. You see, Sae had – no, wait, I mean, my pants had gotten dirty and I was going to change them when all this stuff happened. But it's no big deal. A little embarrassing, maybe, but that's all."

She studied my face carefully. "You're sure that's all? Could perhaps something even more embarrassing happened? Something you have trouble talking about?"

"No, no, not at all. Well, Miyama wanted to sketch me in the nude when she saw me without any pants, but I assume that's not what you meant."

"Um, no." She looked a little disappointed. "Very well, Takeo, I won't press you any further. But if you do feel like talking to me later, my office is always open."

"Ahem, yes," Kimura-sensei intervened. "If that's all settled, Mr. Kubo has something he'd like to say."

"Ah, yes," Kubo-sensei began, "in the storied history of Kitanohashi High School, your chapter is indeed a unique one. Where to classify it, we were never sure. Drama? Comedy? Bathos? Pornography? Today, though, we see it as heroic quest. And while we have no reward truly fit for such acts of heroism, we can at least offer to return to you the presidency of your club. Mr. Aburatsubo proposed this to us, and we were only too happy to agree."

"My club? I– I– thank you, Kubo-sensei. Thank you very much." I was going to leave it at that – getting my club back! – but somehow, something made me say, "Again, thank you, Kubo-sensei, but I think we should stick with the current arrangement. Aburatsubo and Nakatomi are doing a great job, and really, at this point in the school year, it would be too disruptive to make any further changes."

Kubo-sensei was so startled by my response that he completely forgot his normal florid style of speech. "Wh-what? You're turning it down? Are you sure?"

I shrugged. "I used to think that everything depended on me. That without me, the club would fall apart, that I had to solve every problem. I realize now that's not so. The others were perfectly capable of handling things on their own. I got in the way as much as I helped.

"So maybe, I'm not the beginning and end of everything. But then, magic itself doesn't have a beginning or end. Magic has always been, and magic will always be. What its future here will be, I don't know, but I know it will be great. And what my future will be, I don't know either, but I know that, so long as I have friends like these, it will be great, too."

Kubo-sensei leaned back in his chair and smiled, his composure returned. "I think you have written the title to your chapter."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You'll know soon enough."

And I did.

I could say that's the end of the story, except as I declared above, magic has no end. So it's really just the end of one chapter, and the beginning of the next. Don't worry, I'm not about to saddle you with another whole chapter to read now. You've already suffered enough! And besides, like I also said above, I don't know the future, so I can't say exactly how the next chapter will go. But maybe the following will serve as a hint.

Saturday, Mayumi and I went and took the entrance exam. And it was hard, but hard in a way that I could figure out. I left feeling good about how I had done, and when I met up with Mayumi, she felt the same way. So when my parents took us out to dinner afterward, it really was a celebration.

Mayumi wanted to go for a walk after dinner. We ended up at the same park where I had learned the healing spell. The cherry tree I had forced was still in bloom, though starting to fade.

"I hope I didn't hurt the tree by making it bloom so early," I said.

"I think it'll be ok," Mayumi replied. "Cherry trees sometimes bloom prematurely when there's a warm spell in the middle of winter, but they recover from that. In fact, they can even have a second bloom when spring really comes. We'll have to check when I come back. And I am coming back, I promise!"

"I know you will."

"But that does bring up something. In order to come back, I have to leave. And that's what I'm doing now."

"What? Right now? But, but –" I cast around for some way to stop her. "But what about the TV show? There's lots more filming to do!"

"That's actually part of it. What happened down in Osaka – the TV people know all about it, of course, from their reporters. So they now want to incorporate it into the plot. It turns out Yamashita had cameras set up throughout the warehouse. They've negotiated with his wife – she controls everything now that he's in jail – for rights to the footage. But they need to redo some scenes with me instead of Sae, so I'll be heading down for that."

"OK, but, uh, there's like more magic for us to practice, and, uh, you know, lots of things here in Tokyo to see, and uh –"

She took hold of my hands and faced me. "Takeo, Takeo. It's ok. This past week – well, I've never experienced anything quite like it. I might have been joking about changing you, but whether you meant to or not, you've changed me."

"I have? For the better, I hope."

"That's something I'll have to figure out. And I hope you don't mind, but I think I'm better off figuring it out by myself. Here, with you, it's been so crazy it's hard even to think."

"Oh." I smiled a slightly bitter smile. "So you're just like Sae, a week with me and you already need a break."

She laughed. "Maybe so. But she did come back after her break, didn't she?"

"True."

"And I will too. After all, a girlfriend may break up with you, but a big sister never will. So, see you around, little brother."

And with that, she pulled me to her and kissed me, hard. "Sister" or not, I could feel the warmth immediately rise up around us. Even without the perfume affecting me, I staggered from the sudden intensity of her embrace.

When the feeling reached its peak, she pushed back from me and said, "That's another thing about big sisters. They feel free to take advantage of their little brothers. Thanks for the lift. Oh, and someone will be by tomorrow to pick up my things. Goodbye."

She then turned, took three steps and vanished.

I had a hard time explaining to my parents why Mayumi didn't come back home with me. I tried something about how her parents missed her and, now that the Yamashita affair was over, wanted her back home immediately. However, they were convinced that she and I must have had a big fight, no doubt because of some terrible, insensitive thing I had said, and she had stormed off in a huff.

Fortunately, Mayumi did call the next day to thank them for hosting her and apologize for leaving so abruptly, and made it clear it wasn't my fault. Or, more precisely, it was my fault, in a way, but not in a bad one.

As for the club, Ryoko's rigorous training did the trick, and we gradually reduced our crowd to a handful of diehards – including Rinpun and Kojin, if you're wondering. The new membership levels did call for a new space division with the (renewed) Manga Club. Aburatsubo, who wasn't exactly pleased about me refusing the club presidency, said I had to make up for it by handling negotiations with Miyama. That went better than expected – I guess she was still grateful for being rescued and all. Not so grateful to prevent her from ending up with more than two thirds of the space, of course.

None of that mattered, though, as I was now free to spend more time with Sae. And we did ... just normal stuff. Like any other couple. Sometimes by ourselves, and sometimes with Nanaka and whoever.

Oh, yeah, Nanaka. After the fight at the schoolyard, she became a local celebrity, interviewed by both newspaper and TV. Her apparent modesty when she begged off that no, no, she hadn't done that much, just served to make her look all the more charming. The TV studio took advantage of the publicity and leaked that she was appearing in their upcoming "magical event." Since we all had pledged to keep the filming secret, she got singled out as our resident TV star. So she had to deal with all the attention while the rest of us got to remain anonymous. At least until the TV show comes out.

Which it still hasn't yet. The studio people keep changing their minds about which direction they want to go, and what they want to include. They heard about our trips to Hawaii and other places, and decided they needed "exotic location" shots, except there were budget and schedule issues, so that got delayed. Then their test audiences kept pulling them this way and that, so some of our existing scenes had to be redone, except the director objected and quit and a new one had to be brought in, and ...

The good thing, though, is our contracts guarantee we're paid every week. Apparently they originally thought we'd be done with shooting in two or three weeks, so that would have been a great deal for them, but it's been going on two months now with no end in sight. Which is fine with me, as I'll need the money.

Let me finish with what I'll need that money for. A few weeks after the exam, I got a call from Mayumi. "Have you checked the test results yet?"

"The results? No, not yet. I was going to go look tomorrow after school."

"You don't have to bother. I got them to tell me. We're in. Both of us."

"Really? That's great! That's incredible!"

"Yeah, and there's more good news. I found us a place!"

"A place?"

"A place to live, remember? It's perfect – a nice neighborhood, easy walk to the campus, and it's a real deal!"

"Really? You were serious about that?"

"Of course I was! What, you don't want to live with your big sister? Don't worry, you get your own room and all, so we won't have to share a bed. Unless you want to, that is."

"Ha ha, no, that's ok. But, um, yeah, that'd be great, assuming I can afford it. If I try to get money from my parents, they'll just make me live at home instead."

"Well, we can't have that. And we won't. Like I said, the landlady is giving you a really great deal. There is a slight catch, though."

"Oh? What's that? I have to sleep with the cockroaches?"

"No, it's not like that. It's a little hard to explain. Tell you what – we need to inspect the place anyway, so why don't you go visit it tomorrow after school, talk with the landlady, find out all the conditions, and see what you think. OK?"

"Uh, sure, I suppose."

"All right, let me give you the address and all." Which she did. "I'll tell her to expect you tomorrow around 4pm. One other thing – I really think you ought to take Sae with you."

"Sae? Why?"

"Trust me on this. You're going to want to make sure she approves, too."

"OK, if you say so. I suppose it makes sense. I mean, if I'm going to have Sae over, it should be to a place she can at least tolerate."

"Good, you understand. Give me a call afterward and let me know how it went. Bye!"

Sae was a little puzzled when I explained everything to her before school the next morning. "Sure, I'll come with you if you want, but you don't really need me. If the place is all right with you, I'm sure it will be fine with me."

"Mayumi was pretty insistent. I guess she doesn't trust my judgment."

"Then I don't know why she would trust mine!"

"Oh, c'mon. Your place is beautiful. Just like you!"

She blushed. "Don't say that kind of thing!"

"Hey, that's a boyfriend's duty! But I'll try to keep it under control. Meet you after school out front?"

"OK, see you then!"

Going through the park on the way to the train station, we passed by the cherry tree that had been my victim back at the end of January. Its blossoms of then were long gone, of course, but I was pleased to see it was covered with a new set of buds. "Looks like it's going to get a normal spring after all," I observed.

"How about us?" Sae asked. "Are we going to get a normal spring? Our winter was anything but! Not to mention our fall, our summer ..."

"I think our winter was pretty special," I said. "And I'm sure our spring will be, too."

We stopped and turned to face each other. There was still a vibrancy about this area, an energy which I could feel now rising up in us, too. Sae took my hands in hers and looked up at me. There was a long pause, but just when I was about to go for the kiss, she said, "You know if we kiss right now, we're going to end up in Africa."

I sighed. "You're right. And that would be quite a detour from Komaba. I guess we'd better rely on the train instead."

When we left the train, we walked past a large park and turned down a street into a quiet, tree-lined residential neighborhood.

"This looks really nice," Sae said.

"Yeah, maybe a little too nice. Mayumi said it was affordable, but that could have been a rich girl's idea of what's affordable. Oh well, it doesn't cost anything to look."

It took some searching, but we finally located the address. The place was surrounded by a tall, imposing wall, with only the top of its old-style tile roof visible from the street.

"So, do we ring the doorbell?" Sae asked. "Or is there an intercom somewhere?"

"Mayumi gave me the code to open the front gate," I said. "We're supposed to go in and meet the landlady at the house."

The gate slid open silently when I entered the code. We stepped through and into – paradise.

OK, maybe not paradise, but a very nice traditional Japanese garden. It was of course still very early spring, but in this protected area, there were already flowers in bloom, crocuses and winter daphne and plum blossoms, mixing their aroma with the cedars which shaded a small babbling brook flowing through their midst. We crossed over the brook on a red sorihashi-style bridge, then followed the path which wound through the garden, making its leisurely way to the traditional sukiya-zukuri style (though obviously recently built) house.

"So beautiful!" Sae said. "And peaceful. It'll be the perfect place for you to study!"

"Yeah, assuming I'm not constantly worrying about how to pay for it."

When we reached the front door, there was a note attached. "Sorry, I'll be a little delayed. Feel free to look around. Everything is open except of course the studio."

So that's what we did. The house itself was actually rather small: modest living room and kitchen, traditional bath and (fortunately) modern toilet, and, off to the side, three more small tatami-mat rooms, presumably the bedrooms. On the other side of the hallway from those rooms was a single large locked room, presumably the studio.

Nothing of the interior of the large room was visible from the hallway. I was curious (all right, nosy), and went outside to take a peek through the window. Even there, because of all the plantings, it was hard to see much, but it looked like a nice, large, airy space, perfect for a studio.

Hmm, I wondered, would tenants have access to this? After our experience at the warehouse in Osaka, I had started getting interested in magical devices, and this would be a great space to work on them. Maybe I could negotiate for my own corner out of this? Or perhaps –

"So, is this going to be your own Hinata Ryokan?" Sae asked.

"My own what?"

"Like in that manga, Love Hina. You'll be living here with all these beautiful women. Including the one you promised to get into Todai with!"

"Ha, ha! Except I don't think something we said the week before the test counts the same as a childhood promise. And it's just Mayumi and Ryoko, it's not like there's a whole houseful. Well, at least until I can get you to move in."

She smiled. "That's the promise you have to keep."

Oh, yes, this was the outcome of the dinner I finally had with Sae's parents. I wouldn't say that I as a person impressed them, exactly, but they were very impressed about me going to "the most prestigious university in Japan." Modesty compelled me to say it wasn't that big a deal, that with the right schooling and the right help, anyone could get in. One thing then led to another, and I ended up promising that I would help Sae pass the entrance exam, too. Which, I mean, I do want, because it means Sae would be going to college here, with me, and not off in Hokkaido or wherever. We'll just have to see how that goes.

"Oh, what about the landlady?" Sae suddenly asked.

"The landlady? She should be here soon. We got here a little early, so it's still only ten past 4."

"No, no, I mean won't she be living here, too? I assume the big room is hers. So that's another member for your harem."

"I don't think some middle-aged landlady counts. And she probably has a bunch of properties she manages and will only show up occasionally."

As usual, my prophesies were only about one quarter right.

Just then, we heard the front door open and a voice called out, "Yoohoo, I'm back! Are you in here?"

Hmm, there was something familiar about that voice ... We came around to the entrance way and there stood –

"Miyama-san!" I said. "What are you doing here? Wait – are you thinking about renting this place too?"

"Renting? Certainly not! I own this! Or, more precisely, my family does. They bought this for me since I won't have the studio space at school any more."

"S-so you'll be l-living here?"

"In this tiny place? Of course not! This is simply to provide a quiet environment for my new job."

"New job? What, you have a new manga?"

She smiled a rather ominous smile. "Ah, yes, one that you will find of, shall we say, personal interest. After I got word of this reality TV series of yours, my lawyer and I went and had a discussion with the TV studio. We needed to establish just who it was who had prior rights to your story."

"Rights to my story? Wouldn't that be me?"

"Cute. Hopelessly naive, but cute. Anyway, you will be relieved to know we came to an amiable agreement. They can go ahead and do their show, and I will do the manga adaptation of it. Cross-media events are all the rage these days, so it will be a win/win/win, as they say."

"'Win/win/win'? Why three 'wins'?"

"Because, my dear boy, you are the third winner! Aren't you glad?"

"Huh? What am I winning?"

"A place to stay, and a new career as a live-in model!"

"'Live-in model'? Hold on, are you saying –"

"Yes, I will have to credit that arrogant friend of yours for the idea. Since I won't be living here, I need a caretaker to look after the house the rest of the time. That Matsura woman found out about it somehow, and proposed your little clique for the job. She pointed out how convenient it would be to have you around whenever I needed to sketch the details for some position. Especially some ... intimate position."

"Intimate? Now, wait, I already told you that sort of thing is only for Sae and me, and –"

"And don't give me that nonsense. I've already seen the film clips of your little trysts with that woman. You're clearly capable of sharing 'that sort of thing' with an entire studio. And potentially even an entire TV audience! So posing for a few tasteful sketches in a quiet, supportive environment, that should be nothing!"

"I see, but –"

"But the alternative is you pay market rate for the rent here."

"Oh. So what would that be, 50,000 yen a month?"

She laughed. "Add a zero to that and you'd be closer. Not quite there, but closer."

Yikes! 500,000 yen? Even divided three ways, one month would cost almost twice the money I had made from all the filming so far! "Uh, I see. So what if I go along with this?"

"Well, then, in exchange for house-sitting, and periodic modeling gigs, I'd only charge you a nominal amount, to cover utilities and such. Say, 30,000 yen a month."

I looked at Sae, who squeezed my hand in reassurance. "It's ok," she said in a low voice. "You do what you need to do."

I sighed. Speaking of things without an end in sight, Miyama's annoyances had to be near the top of the list. But if it was ok with Sae ...

"All right, I'll do it," I said. "But only on the condition that Sae can supervise any sketching sessions." Having Sae there would be embarrassing, I thought, but ought to keep Miyama from getting too far out of hand.

Miyama smirked. "Of course, of course, I know you can't do anything without her permission. Why don't we seal our deal with the first session right now? I'll let you ease into it. For this one, all you have to do is drop your pants. I need to do some character sketches for the warehouse scene. Come with me."

She led me to one of the small rooms. "This will be your bedroom, so you may as well get undressed here. When you're ready, come across the hall into my studio, and we'll get started."

After she left, I smiled ruefully at Sae. "Here I am, taking my pants off around you again, and not for anything fun."

Sae blushed. "We'll get to that soon enough."

Something about that blush made me think ... "Uh, maybe we could get to a little of that right now? I've got some of Ryoko's pills with me, and –"

Her blush turned bright red. "What? With her right across the hall? If we take too long, she's going to come over and check and –"

"OK, ok, you're right. And I better get a lock for this door first thing."

I pulled off my pants and, mindful that Sae was watching, folded them neatly and set them off to the side. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "All right, I'm ready if you are," I said. "Into the lion's den we go."

We crossed the hallway, and this time, the studio door opened easily. Except, it opened to a pitch-black room. The lights were off, and even the shades had been drawn, so nothing was visible inside.

"Uh, Miyama-san?" I said. "What happened? Why is it so dark in here?"

"Sorry, sorry," her voice came from somewhere in the blackness. "I was in the middle of setting up mood lighting for my sketch. Here, let me get the switch –"

A sudden blinding flash of light, then a bunch of people jumped up and yelled, "SURPRISE!"

When my eyes had a chance to adjust, I saw everyone was there – my club, my family, Ryoko and her dad, Mayumi, Saki, Rinpun and Kojin, Kubo-sensei and Kobayashi-sensei (the latter of whom looked worried), the newspaper reporters (who took a couple quick photos), even Ai Aihara and the baker from that cafe I had stopped at so often. "What the –? What's going on?" I demanded.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" they shouted.

Oh yeah.

I had forgotten.

"Takeo, where are your pants?" my mom asked.

(still not) THE END (but that's enough ...)

Afterword – Characters and Spells

Characters

Most of the characters are familiar from the anime. The ones marked with a single star * are from the (Shamneko) manga. Ones marked with two stars ** are new characters I've added, or at least are ones who aren't explicitly named in the anime or manga, so far as I have seen.

Main characters

Takeo Takakura – senior at Kitanohashi High School, president of its Magic Club and narrator of this story.

Ayanojo Aburatsubo – senior, vice president of the Magic Club and Takeo's, let's say, best friend.

Sae Sawanoguchi – junior, Magic Club member, Takeo's love interest, and possibly the world's most powerful (if untrained) witch.

Nanaka Nakatomi – junior, Magic Club member and Sae's best friend.

Akane Aikawa – sophomore, Magic Club member and model.

Saki Sawanoguchi – Sae's older sister; Sae lives with her in Tokyo.

Jeff-kun – Sae's teddy bear and (in some mysterious way) protector.

Takako Takakura – Takeo's younger sister.

** Tamiko and Taichiro Takakura – Takeo's mother and father.

Katsuhito Kubo – supervisor of school clubs.

** Kintaro Kimura – vice principal.

Mizuha Miyama – senior, president of the Manga Club and Takeo's nemesis.

Rinpun and Kojin – juniors(?), Miyama's Manga Club flunkies.

* The "House of Spirits (魔界舎)" is a magical organization which appears in volume 2 of the Shamneko manga.

* Ryoko Ryugasaki – Minami Aoba High School junior, who wants to recruit Takeo (and eventually the others) for the House of Spirits.

* Dr. Ryuunosuke Ryugasaki – Ryoko's father, head of the House of Spirits. I can't remember if he's ever fully named in the manga, so I decided to give him a first name and a doctorate while I was at it.

** The "House of Mystery (秘密舎)" is another magical organization, rivals to the House of Spirits.

** Yashiro Yamashita – head of the House of Mystery.

** Mayumi Matsura – mysterious woman who has some sort of relationship with both Houses.

Other characters

Miki Mizusawa – former Magic Club president, now lives abroad.

Sawako and Sakae Sawanoguchi – Sae's mother and father, live in Hokkaido.

** Sayuri and Sanji Sato – neighbors of the Sawanoguchis in Hokkaido.

** Asami, Hitomi, Matsuda, Tamura, Yamazaki – other Manga Club members.

Michiko Mikote – head of Aburatsubo's fan club.

Madoka Masuko – Aburatsubo fan club member.

Hikaru Hirasaka – Aburatsubo fan club member.

** Tomoko Tomogawa – senior, classmate of Takeo.

** Yumi Yukino, Ai Aihara – juniors, classmates of Sae and Nanaka.

** Kozue Kobayashi – school counselor.

** Hamada, Harano – other teachers at Kitanohashi High School.

Mitsuru Minowa – journalist.

Yoshito Yoshimoto – photographer, Minowa's assistant.

** Itsuki Inoue – producer of "Magic on the Air."

** Akagi, Endo, Ikeda, Ogawa, Ueda – some of Yamashita's flunkies.

* "Celery-chan" (Serina) – strange elementary school girl who moves into Sae's house and steals her wand, from volume 3 of the manga.

Spells

I use a few spells from the anime (and manga), and create a few new ones in the course of the story. Again, ones marked with a single star * are from the manga (at least in the form I use them here), while two stars ** mark new ones I've created. In case you are wondering, the invocations for the spells I created are taken from heavily mangled Latin phrases.

Most spells have a limited duration, from a few seconds to at most a few hours. Teleportation-type spells don't count – once you've moved, you've really moved, so it would take a second spell to have you come back. Healing spells similarly don't count, at least for the healing part.

** Morabi deor! Cadi deor! Laxi deor! – A barrier spell, which creates a shield which can halt (and possibly repel or destroy) any physical object, and even some spells, directed at the invoker.

** Fulmen proteget, inpulsa tutele, actuat! – A personal protection spell, which creates an electric field around the invoker.

** (The "Kiss Express") – A powerful teleportation spell Sae and Takeo stumble across. Has a number of somewhat disturbing variations.

** Leviora fiate, leviora fiate, surge! Ite! – A levitation spell. (There are levitation spells in the anime and manga, but I couldn't find any invocations for them, so I made up one.)

* Kushushu kasukes! Igomas tez kasukes! Towindour tez kasukes! – Object visualization spell, lets the invoker see (and possibly teleport to) the location of an object. Seems to be a variation of the exchange spell (below).

* (Dowsing spell) – Use the wand as a dowsing rod to point to the location of an object.

Fjushu qasqes, iomuz qasqes, dvindu diz qasqes! – Exchange spell, swaps the location of two objects.

Izati abamehinam eto kaffe nan! – Flying spell, enchants a broom-like object so the invoker can fly on it.

** Kaiku nevi – "Snow blindness" spell, makes everything within a radius appear uniformly white.

** Semita okuruta, nunko lokui – Spell to find hidden enchantments.

** Korigete. Konlineate. Qurate! – Healing/repair spell.

** Imfure bin, purtate sukopun, ite! – Projection spell, takes the energy from a Fulmen electric field (or the like) and projects it a (limited) distance away.

** Exankulate ad fundati, exsikate et relinqate! – Grounding spell, drains away the energy from a Fulmen electric field.

** Kiyeskisu takeh nunn! – Silencing spell, prevents the victim from making any sound for a period of time.

Exsuarte bei to en! Towass! – Transformation spell. Changes an object into something else.

Notes

One MTT chronology I've seen would indicate this takes place during January – March, 1997; others perhaps a couple of years later. So I've tried to keep all the pop culture references, etc., to that late '90s timeframe. If I've messed up somewhere, my excuse is all of this is in an alternate universe.

The location in the original anime is left vague, though some other material points to somewhere near Tokyo. I just went with Tokyo, or at least a nearby Tokyo suburb, to give myself some concrete references.

Since typing the above, I found out the location, according to those who know the area, is clearly intended to be Nishi-Ogikubo (西荻窪). This is a district to the west-northwest of downtown Tokyo, known (according to Wikipedia) "to have a high concentration of shops specialised in antique curiosas and second-hand books." Seems appropriate. Amazingly enough, this location does match up with all the train transportation references I make in the story, even though I just made them all up at the time. Must be magic.