> "Absolutely. Have a pleasant day."
> Watch to see if she disappears (instead of sticking around). If she does, wait a few seconds, then give a quiet exhale of relief.
> Get back to work, and our proper sense of normalcy.
>You spend the rest of the day sliding back into work. Being a bit run down, you decide to put off some less important things for tomorrow. Overseeing dinner, you make sure that there are some fresh cookies for the Young Mistress. Amaya, bless her, has managed to keep the cleaning schedule more or less intact; she doesn?t have your talent for leading the maids, nor the Mistress?, but she can guilt them into doing their best through her unabashed sincerity. Dinner is pleasant; Amaya insists on handling the service, allowing you to relax and dine with the rest of the mansion. Frankly, you're starving, and put more of a dent in dinner than usual. Remilia frets over you a little, but you reassure her.
>The next few days are normal, but worrying. You?re always ready for that feeling if your heart stopping; you decide to carry some extra knives and your spellcards just in case. But nothing happens, and you start to worry about it less and less. Eventually, that fear becomes a memory, and it seems things have truly returned to normalcy. You decide to make some extra shopping trips here and again, and quietly keep an eye on the village. Rinnosuke seems to be on a prolonged upswing, which is always good to see. Things around the Myouren Temple seem peaceful; perhaps your letter helped smooth things over a bit until the next incident inevitably happens? The jeweler's apprentice seems to be doing well, she certainly isn't complaining, at least, and that is about as much as you think anyone can pry out of her. As well, the few times you see Alice, she always has a cheerful wave for you. So too does the mermaid in the lake, who sometimes pops up while you walk along the lakeshore to gossip.
>More importantly, you start finding excuses to bring Meiling with you. Perhaps you need an extra pair of hands for this, or you need a second opinion on that. And while you're in town, it would certainly be a waste not to get something to eat and talk awhile. After all, you both work hard and deserves a break, as you will tell anyone who asks. Meiling is certainly happy to come, favoring you with a warm smile that makes your heart flutter, sharing little words on the way there and back when no one is around. She is still adamant about secrecy, but she seems to be more and more willing to push the bounds of it. Either way, it is a joy to be with her, now if you could just smuggle her along the next time you get some time to go fishing?
>A few weeks after the end of this incident, you get a small note from Keine. She says that everything should be properly affixed in the flow of history, and complain a little about how it was an absolute nightmare to reconcile everything. But as far as you can tell, things have gone as you remember.
>Then, a letter from Youmu comes, as summer begins to dawn, and she follows the next day. The resulting battle pushes you to your limit, and it doesn't help that a particular red-haired drifter you've seen come and go from mansion events has followed her and cheers loudly on her behalf. Despite Youmu having her own cheering section, she comes up just short in the end. Frankly, you were starting to doubt things in the last moments, and you have to leave things to Meiling, so that you can head inside and collapse into a heap yourself. Still, in the end, however much she may have improved, Youmu still doesn't measure up. This time, you suppose.
>One day around midsummer, you return to your room to find a letter on your writing desk. You have no idea how it got there, and upon inspection, the writing is not familiar. Well, there's a vague familiarity to it. It reads. "You've come and gone twice now, Sakuya, and it looks like you've sewn everything up, as far as I can tell. But I've been thinking about you lately, so I decided to pull a few strings here and there. You won't be able to respond, but don't worry. I'll know."
>"You'll be pleased to know that Patchouli is doing a lot better. Whatever happened before, it seems Alice was able to adjust it to make it less bad. There were still problems, but nothing like before. The three magicians are still at it. Let's see... You'll be pleased to hear that Haihan is behaving now. It turns out there was some kind of monster in Funsei Mountain that was pushing the Warlord toward her conquests in order to gather up enough power that she could vanquish it herself. Ugh, nobles. Always too dumb to ask for help. But my maiden handled it. Sachiko helped too, I guess. And Kyouko the Yamabiko, too! I'm sure you remember her.
>"I'm not going to go into too much detail about things, since I don't want to ruin them, but your young mistress and everyone is just fine. Apex is Apex, I'm sure you know what that means. Oh! Yukari says hello. And she's yelling at me for saying too much. So I'll have to cut this short. That phantom you helped out is doing fine, too."
>"I doubt there's going to be another of these. You may notice I've not said anything at all about you. Well, you don't think I'm so dumb I'd tell you about that, do you? But I hope things find you well"
>"-R"
>You have gotten a
Happy End!
>Original Inspiration: TranceHime
>Programming, Music, Typos, Database Errors: Purvis Hobotech
>Title Art: Past Himiko
>Ending Art: Current Himiko
>Supper Player: You!
>Beware the Formless One