So what did you expect we did? Ami made the choice, actually. We had Reika break the spell and smash the amulet. It didn’t look like Ami felt any pain, actually. She just kissed me, and watched me for a moment, then wasn’t alive any more. I held her very tightly, using all my will to have her live again, but naturally it didn’t work. I cried, Reika cried, we cried onto each other, over Ami.

Unlike in a fairy tale, though, our tears falling on her didn’t magically bring her back from the dead. She knew the sacrifice she made. She promised us that she would talk to the gate guardians in the afterlife and speak on our behalf. She promised she would tell them that all those people who died with her weren’t murdered, but instead they were freed from their torment. She promised that she would speak to each and every one of them, personally, even if to took all eternity, she would tell them what happened, and that it wasn’t their fault.

I promised to her that I would do all I could to clean the world from Gemathesirick’s wrongdoings, so I’m slowly working the hunters out of their brainwashing. They’re not taking it well, but they’re waking up, slowly. So is the whole world.

Reika is working reverently on a cure for the Wax wolf affliction, or even a suppressant, and I’m working on a cure or suppressant for the bigotry. Ami’s work is over, and she did something hard, but Reika and I are only just getting started on our parts of the work.

The world isn’t perfect yet, and it probably won’t be in my lifetime, but it’s slowly getting there. Maybe in Reika’s long years she’ll see something closer to a utopia than what’s here now.