A/N: To paraphrase Mr. Buffet: It's Wednesday somewhere ^0^

As a hearty congratulations to Greki for her new job, here is the final chapter for everyone. Thank you all again for your wonderful comments!

Disclaimer: I do not own MSGM or any of its characters. All such honors belong to Oyuki Konno. I will lay claim to this plotline, however ^_^

Yumi ran through the night, her mind a blank canvas of fear. She had lost her shoes somewhere along the sidewalks of Shinjuku Ni-choume, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered. All she knew was that she had to get away from that place as fast as she could. People along the sidewalk that she passed or bumped into cursed her as she ran in headlong flight from the scene of her worst nightmare. In all the years she had been painting Sachiko's portraits she had never put them all out for display at one time. They were always turned towards the walls of her small studio. Seeing her paintings, all of them, properly displayed had sent a knife of terror straight through her. She would not have been surprised to find out that she had wet herself as she stood in that entryway, staring at the evidence of seven of the most miserable years of her life.

Yumi finally collapsed sobbing, out of breath and out of energy, at a small park somewhere in the large city that was Tokyo. She was lucky that there was no one around to molest her as she huddled next to a small fountain and cried into the night; her wails mixing with the sound of the splashing water. She was even luckier that she had somehow held on to her purse since it carried both her wallet and her cell phone. When she had finally calmed down after an hour or so she called her usual gypsy cab company and had them pick her up and drive her to Kei-sama's.

There she removed the now ruined dress, being careful to take off the string of pearls that had somehow miraculously stayed around her neck, and took a long hot shower until her shivering started to finally slow. She wrapped herself in a warm robe that Kei had given her to use and, after putting her hair up, sat down at her easel, staring at the new portrait that she had finally finished just before the town car arrived for her date that evening. It was the only portrait where she had not crashed after finishing. It was also the only painting she had done of Sachiko where her soft, gentle smile was actually reflected in her sparkling sapphire eyes.

The raven haired beauty was standing once again in front of the now familiar statue of Maria-sama, only this time the scene was early morning. No longer was the background and surrounding scenery hidden in darkness. This time bright sunlight flooded the entirety of the portrait. You could make out the dew on the grass and on the leaves of the hedge of the ornamental garden that surrounded the white, stone statue of the Madonna. The tall, blue eyed girl that was Sachiko Ogasawara stood calmly in front of that statue, a soft smile on her face as she was fixing the crooked scarf of a younger, brown haired student in pigtails with medium brown eyes.

Yumi had no clue why her visions, for the first time in seven years, had finally placed a clear and distinct image of herself in the final painting. In each of the previous dozen paintings, her figure had been only a ghost, a phantom trying but never succeeding in soothing the heartwrenching pain in Sachiko's eyes, that she had eventually painted out of each and every picture. Only an impression, a vague feeling of someone missing would be able to be discerned by the most observant viewer. It didn't matter. It was over. It had to be. This had to be the last one. If it wasn't . . . she didn't dare think about going down that dark path.

She cleaned up her oils, her pigments, and her brushes, throwing most everything into the trash. She put a top on the old coffee can that she had been using to hold her turpentine and affixed a label regarding proper disposal. Finally, she moved the easel and canvas over into a corner behind the front door that was large enough to hold it safely. She was sure someone would come along eventually to claim it.

She then went into her bedroom, changed into a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, and packed her clothes. She took enough money from her purse to cover the rest of the week and left it, along with a note of thanks, for Kei to find the next time she entered to looking for her boarder.

Gathering the rest of her meager belongings and throwing her gym bag of clothing over her shoulder, she turned and looked one last time at the warm room that had housed her for the past three weeks. She wiped a stray tear from her eye, turned once more and closed the door behind her, slipping out into the night, heading for the airport.

-oo-

Or that had been her plan.

"And just where do you think you are going? Trying to sneak out in the middle of the night, Yumi-chan?" Kaori-sensei asked with a smile where she leaned against the Kato-san's gate.

Yumi's shoulders slumped in defeat. Well, she had tried. "Since I doubt that you will allow me to leave quietly, can I invite you in for a cup of tea, Kaori-sensei," she sheepishly asked the Academy Director.

"Why, I would love a cup of tea, Yumi-chan, thank you," the older woman chuckled. "Did you really think you would be able to escape that easily?" she asked a few minutes later as she sat on the couch in the living room of the cottage while Yumi brewed a pot of chamomile tea for them. Maybe the tea would help to settle her still somewhat jittery nerves.

"One could always hope, Kaori-sama," Yumi sighed. "Do you have any idea how I felt when I walked into that exhibit room this evening to see a sight that even I have never seen in seven years? Please remember that each and every one of those paintings represents a nightmare vision for me. How would you feel if you were suddenly presented with a dozen of your worst nightmares all at one time?"

"I'm very sorry, Yumi-chan," the grey haired woman said gently, "I honestly had no idea what the exhibit was about. Every few months I will get an invitation to a gallery show from Sei-chan. I usually try to get to one or two a year, but I thought that you might truly enjoy it seeing as they don't really have galleries in your home town. I certainly never expected to run into a dozen pieces of your work."

"I don't fault you, Kaori-sensei," Yumi sighed again as she handed the woman a cup of hot tea. "There is no one to blame but myself."

"You are certainly not to blame, Yumi-chan. You are right, there is no way I can understand how you feel. I can say, however, that after taking the time to look over your work, you are even more gifted than I had originally thought. Each and every one of those paintings was absolutely exquisite. You have a true talent there girl, and it would be a sin to let it go to waste."

"At least I have the pleasure of teaching the students in my old school," Yumi said with a sad smile as she sat on the other end of the couch and took a sip of her tea. "It's not much, but it is one of the few things that make me happy."

"Now that I can understand," Kaori said with a grin. "I have never been happier than when I was teaching at Lillian. Oh, I have my moments now and then as the Director, but I still have wonderful dreams of my days as a simple teacher."

"I know," Yumi said a bit wistfully. "When you see the smile on the face of a child that has learned something new, or performed well on a test or a project; when you get that hug of thanks from a happy child; those are the moments you live for," Yumi sighed with a small smile.

"And you wonder why I so desperately want you at Lillian, child," Kaori grinned. "You have the true heart of a teacher as well as the talent to go along with it."

Yumi laughed as Kaori brought the conversation around one more time to her favorite subject of the past three weeks, while Kaori smirked to herself, happy that she had been able to, at least temporarily, get Yumi out of her funk. Too bad it wasn't going to last very long.

"Now, is that something new I see hidden there behind the door, Yumi-chan?" Kaori asked.

Yumi frowned and, sighing in resignation, set her cup of tea on the table as she rose to move the easel back to its previous spot where the canvas could be properly seen.

"Oh, my, Yumi-chan. It's wonderful!" the older woman exclaimed as she stood to get a better look. "Is this what your latest vision showed you?" At Yumi's silent nod, the old teacher stood back and looked at it critically. "I think it's even better than all of the others. It's simple, but so beautiful in its innocence."

"It's not like I had a choice, Kaori-sensei," Yumi said sadly. "I have to paint what the vision shows me or I will go crazy."

"But I looked at all of the other paintings you have done, and there is someone missing in each and every one of them. Did you truly paint everything in your previous visions, or did you purposely leave something, or should I say 'someone,' out of each of them?"

"It would have been the height of conceit to paint myself, even as a ghost, into the same picture as Sachiko-sama," Yumi cried softly, placing her hands over her eyes.

"Nervousness," Kaori said as she stood a little to the right of center of the newest portrait before she took a small, quarter-step to the left, "wonder," another quarter-step, "joy," another quarter-step to her left, "confusion," another quarter-step, "desire," one more step, "it's like a new expression on your face from every different angle you view it from. But why did you finally paint yourself into this picture, Yumi-chan? Why . . ."

"I HAD NO CHOICE!" Yumi wailed as she fell to her knees, cradling her head in her hands as the tears flowed down her cheeks.

"And neither do I," said an angry voice from the open doorway.

Both women turned to see the new arrival. A raven haired beauty with pure venom in her sapphire blue eyes stood in the entry while a number of other women stood grouped behind her.

"We tried to stop her, Kaori-sensei," an embarrassed Sei said from behind the angry woman as she scratched her head.

"You are obviously some sort of con-artist, as talented an artist as you may be. It's too bad you couldn't turn your talent to honest work," Sachiko said in an iron voice as she walked into the small cottage followed by Sei, Youko, and Yoshino. "Youko, please file the necessary paperwork to charge this woman with malfeasance, or fraud, or whatever you can think of that will land her in the jail cell where she belongs for what she has done to me."

Yumi just lowered her head back into her hands, turned her back on the gathering and continued to weep, unable to withstand seeing the mixture of pain of hatred in the beautiful eyes of the woman that was accusing her.

"Sachiko, what exactly has she done to you other than to give you a dozen magnificent paintings," Youko said gently as she looked around the cottage. "From what I can see, she was planning on leaving. She has not asked for a single yen from you, nor from the school. According to Eri-san, she has turned down every offer of employment that has been put before her. Not once has she asked for a single thing," Youko tried to explain.

"What has she done to me? What has she done to me? SHE STOLE MY PETITE SOEUR," Sachiko screamed, her fingernails digging bloody crescents into her palms and tears now streaming down her cheeks at the tornado of mixed emotions swirling through her.

"No, my dear, she didn't," Kaori said quietly into the silence that followed Sachiko's emotional outburst. "She may not have been there when you needed her at the time," the old teacher said as she walked over and took the taller girl in her arms as she cried, "but she didn't steal your petite soeur. She's right here," she finished, turning Sachiko so that she could see the sobbing Yumi, still crumpled on the floor.

"In every picture, every painting, every portrait, she purposely neglected to paint in the figure of your petite soeur . . . because she wasn't there. She was stuck in a tiny school in Ashoro on Hokkaido. What circumstances caused her to be unable to go to Lillian, I do not know. What I do know is that the Lord works in mysterious ways . . . and so does our Maria-sama. For the past seven years, since the fall of her sixteenth year, this poor child has been painting the portraits that are now hanging in Sei-chan's gallery. Portraits of you, Sachiko-chan. She has never met you, never seen you, never even seen a photograph of you, let alone the scenes in which you have been portrayed. But still she painted them.

"Whether from visions, or dreams, or gifts from a certain Madonna that we all know and love, she has suffered for the past seven years painting the portrait of a girl she so desperately loved but never knew. She felt unworthy of painting herself into the same portraits of the girl she loved, but it is this girl that is missing from all of them. Whether holding your hand, her arms around your waist, talking to you, or just being next to you; she should have been in each and every one of those paintings just as she should have been there at the time. But she could not be there, so she was forced to live these moments only through her visions . . . or her nightmares as she calls them. Nightmares because she so wanted to be there with you but could not," she said quietly as she pulled a now quiet Sachiko, her eyes wide with fear, towards the girl she just knew would have been the petite soeur Sachiko had always been looking for.

Kaori made Sachiko kneel next to the pigtailed artist as she continued to sob into her hands. "Do you think that you were the only one who was unhappy all those years? Do you think that you were the only one suffering? I promise you that this poor child had it much worse than you did; because she could actually see you, but never touch you, never speak with you, never know you. You had your friends and your family to comfort you all these years. She had her parents, but no one else. I spoke to her teachers and the principal at her school. As soon as her visions began, as soon as all her efforts turned towards her painting, all of her friends drifted away from her, ostracized her as being too strange. While you have had the strength of your friends and your onee-sama to support you, she only had her mother and father; two absolutely wonderful people that I have also spoken with, but still only family. And she was slowly losing her sanity from the demands her visions were placing on her.

"While you were missing your petite soeur, she was missing her onee-sama. The only grande soeur she ever had was in the portraits she painted. While you cried in the paintings, she cried into her paints. Every night, every afternoon, every weekend, she cried as she painted her portraits of you."

Sachiko looked at the sobbing girl in front of her and her heart pounded in sorrow, and in need, and in desire. Was she truly a scam artist, or was she the petite soeur she had been missing all these years. Her head was telling her that there was no way, despite Kaori-sensei's words, that this girl could have painted those portraits based solely on visions pressed on her by some higher power. But her heart, her heart was crying out to her that this was the girl she wanted. This was the girl she needed by her side. This was the girl that she could finally love, not only as a friend, and maybe not only as a sister.

Without conscious thought she found herself holding out her arms to the crying girl and, as she slowly gathered her to her breast, the girl turned and threw her arms around her waist, wailing on her shoulder, her tears quickly soaking her neck and the shoulder of her dress. But the warmth and caring and desire that suddenly exploded in Sachiko's aching heart made her oblivious to all else. She no longer heard Kaori-sensei, or the sounds of the others in the room. All she heard was the crying of the girl that she now realized she loved more than anyone else in the world. All she felt were the arms that encircled her waist, clutching to her in desperation. It scared her how much she wanted and needed this girl. It scared her how much she wanted to comfort her, and how much she needed to see her smile. It was like seven years of need and want had been focused into a single moment; here and now. And it scared her to death.

But she controlled that fear as she had been trained her entire life, and underneath that commanding emotion she felt the love and caring that she had for this girl. No, Yumi was no longer a girl, she was a young woman; but in Sachiko's heart she was just a scared sixteen year old girl desperate for the love of her onee-sama. And Sachiko's heart matched that desperation with its own love and caring and need for her petite soeur.

Kaori watched the two women as they cried in each other's arms, a smile on her face and joy in her heart.

"Is all that true, Kaori-sensei?" Youko whispered.

"Have you ever known me to lie child?" she smiled in return. "Every single word was God's own truth. I spoke to her teachers, to her principal, and to her parents. I spoke to Yumi and I looked tonight at the portraits she had painted over the past seven years. I may not be an artist, let alone an art critic, but I am a very observant woman. I could tell that someone was missing from each of those paintings, and when I saw this last one," she said as she indicated the newest portrait as it stood on the easel in the center of the room, "I just knew who it was that was missing from all of the others. Yumi doesn't have a dishonest or malicious bone in her body. If she says that the purposely painted herself out of all of those other portraits you can believe every word."

"You know," Sei said, "each of those paintings is a masterpiece. But you know what I would like to see? I'd like to see each one redone, not painted over mind you, but new paintings. But these would show the two of them, along with the happiness that Sachan should have had on her face if Yumi-chan had been there."

"Now that's an interesting thought, Sei-chan," Kaori chuckled. "Do you think that you could possibly find someone to commission such paintings?"

"Oh, I think I could find one, or maybe two," she chuckled as she gave Youko a significant look.

"It certainly might help me talk that young lady into joining the faculty at Lillian," the Academy Director giggled. "I already have her principal's and her parent's blessings."

"You know, you can be a very wicked woman," Sei grinned. "I knew there was a reason I always liked you."

"So, do you think Sachiko-sama will take Yumi-chan as her petite soeur now?" Yoshino asked the three older women. The women looked first at the two still huddled together on the floor before they looked at each other and smiled.

"No, Yoshino-chan," Sei smirked, "they are a little old to be soeurs. However, give them a few months together and they may end up being a lot more."

"Can you ever get your mind out of the gutter, Sei-sama," Yoshino huffed.

"Yoshino-chan, this has nothing to do with sex . . . well, almost nothing," the tall blonde grinned.

"Let it rest, Yoshino-chan," Youko advised her young employee. "Just imagine how you feel about Rei-chan and you might come close to how those two will be feeling about each other very soon."

"Is it safe to leave them like this?" Yoshino sighed. "I really don't want to have to babysit them all night."

"Yes, I think it's safe," Kaori-sensei said with a grin. "They have a lot of catching up to do."

"I agree," Youko said, turning around and pushing Yoshino toward the door. She had to turn back and grab Sei by the arm and pull her along to get her out of the room. "Come on Sei," she smirked, "I'll give you something a lot more interesting to do when we get home than to watch those two cry over each other."

"Ah, now I'll take that as a promise, Youko," Sei grinned evilly with a last glance behind her.

Kaori closed the door to the cottage quietly behind them as they left, an extremely satisfied smile on her face. She highly doubted that Yumi would suffer from any further visions now that she held the real thing in her arms. She decided she could wait until later to talk to Kei-chan about switching the billing on the monthly rent for the small cottage over to Lillian. After all, she had work to do in the morning. It takes a lot of paperwork to hire a new teacher in Japan. Even if all she will be teaching is a high school art class.

Once again, thank you all for your kind words and support for this story. I promise that I will consider writing a sequel if I can find a way to keep the mystery and suspense flowing.

Thanks you and take care,

CX