Restless, Epilogue

"They're called the Ideal Witches."

They had found a place to stop for the night, as far away from the cave as they could go all at once. It was another forest, much like the ones that they had spent most nights in, fortunately a very normal forest with nothing weird or malicious in it, or at least they hoped so.

Everyone was gathered in a circle, also much like how they spent most evenings, usually with a crackling fire. But there was no fire this time. Nobody had the strength to make one. And nobody was enjoying the story that was being told.

And everyone's eyes were on Charlotte, as she struggled to explain exactly who or what they had just encountered.

"They're…" Her face twisted up in frustration. "Okay, it's really hard to explain. I only read about them a few times, but basically they're folk tales. You know, stories that get in places far from civilization, out here in the wild lands."

"Seemed pretty real to me," Kyoko remarked.

"Yeah, uh, that's the sucky thing about living in a madcap world of magic. The legends all end up being more-or-less true."

"What are they?" Mami said, her voice hoarse.

Charlotte frowned. "Okay, so basically they're kind of like super-witches."

"Walpurgisnachts?" Kyoko asked.

"No, not really. Um, let me think…" Charlotte closed her eyes as she concentrated. "So if I'm remembering this right, they're witches that have sort of…melded with the fabric of reality."

"Huh?"

Charlotte sighed. "You know how the afterlife is supposed to be made up of our memories? Like, that's why we have territories. A bunch of girls from one species show up in a place, and the land sort of just forms itself into what they remember their world being like?"

"I guess," Kyoko said with a shrug.

"Well, okay. See, the thing about the afterlife is that it's really, really big, but it's not a planet, it's not a sphere. And all the territories are sort of clustered together, so it takes a really long time to get past them, but once you do, once you get away from where people actually live, you enter this place that's sort of just…blank. Empty. Nothing there but you, just waiting for someone to come along and give it form. And since no one has yet, reality in that place is really, um, malleable."

"Malleable?" Kyoko said, raising an eyebrow. "You mean, you can just create whatever you want?"

"No, it doesn't react to conscious thought," Charlotte said. "People have tried to go out there and create their own little worlds, but, um, it never ends well. Um, anyway, if you go even further than that, like way out into the emptiness, then you supposedly enter a place where things aren't just empty and, um, prone to suggestion, but outright unstable."

"Huh?"

"Okay, think of the afterlife as being like a world made out of clay," Charlotte said. She scooped up a handful of mud and squeezed it. "And the places we live in are places where that clay has been shaped and hardened." She then squished the lump back into the ground. "You leave those places, and you reach the soft clay, the clay that hasn't been formed into anything yet." Then she thrust her finger into the ground. "And if you go too far, then you reach the really wet clay, the quicksand, and you sink, and if you sink too far, you sort of…melt into the clay. You become part of it."

Charlotte folded her hands in her lap and stared into the fire. "That's what the Ideal Witches are said to be. Girls who went too far out, who essentially melted into the fabric of reality and became part of it. And then they came back here."

"So, they're like gods?" Kyoko asked.

"Who knows?" Charlotte shrugged. "I mean, the stories are pretty vague on what they can or cannot do; I don't think anyone's ever been able to sit one down and interview one of them. But I do remember that there's supposed to be like seven of them, and each one represents a different, er, concept, I guess. So there's like a witch of love, and a witch of hate, and a witch of despair, that sort of thing."

Then Charlotte looked up at the rest of them, the dancing flames of the campfire shining in her haunted eyes. "But the one I remember the best was Mephisto, the Ideal Witch of Dreams. She was the one with the most stories about her, the one that's said to be the most dangerous. They say that she hides in wait like a spider, luring hapless travelers into her grasp, causing them to fall asleep and enter her dream. And once she has them, she torments them with their darkest of secrets, breaking them down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And when they've lost all will to fight, that's when she starts to feed."

"That certainly checks out," Mami said in a low voice. Kyoko said nothing at all. She merely looked down at her hands, which were draped over her knees. There was an odd, rhythmic thumping started to sound, like a sluggish heartbeat.

"Okay, but seriously, how come I don't remember any of this?" Sayaka complained. "I mean, you all apparently had this big, trippy adventure where you fought a nightmare demon, but why wasn't I there?"

"You were," Kyoko rasped. She didn't look at her. She just kept staring at her hands.

"I was?" Sayaka said. "Then…why don't I…"

The thumping grew louder, and Kyoko's fingers were starting to tremble. She tried to still them, but the shaking just grew worse. It spread to her palms, and then to her wrists, until the whole of her arms were shaking, all the while that heart kept beating louder and louder, until she could hear nothing but-

Kyoko squeezed her hands into fists. The shaking stopped, as did the heartbeats.

"Kyoko?"

Kyoko looked up to see everyone staring at her.

"Are you…okay?" Sayaka said, tilting her head as her brow furrowed in concern.

Kyoko looked away.

Then Mami cleared her throat. "Oktavia, let's go for a walk. There's something I need to tell you."

"Um, okay. But why do we-"

Mami stood and walked behind Sayaka's wheelchair. Turning it, she wheeled Sayaka away.

"Okay, sure," Sayaka said. "I guess we're doing this."

Neither Kyoko nor Charlotte said anything until Mami and Sayaka had gone out of earshot. In fact, Kyoko didn't so much as move. She just remained sitting cross-legged, balled fists hanging over her knees, shoulders slumped and eyes staring unblinkingly at the ground. Charlotte didn't move either. She just stayed where she was, watching Kyoko.

When the other two were gone, Charlotte shifted and said, "Kyoko."

Kyoko didn't respond.

Clearing her throat, Charlotte tried again, louder this time. "Hey. Kyoko."

Still no response.

"Kyoko," Charlotte said for the third time. "Look at me."

Kyoko breathed out through clenched teeth, but she glanced up. "Hey," she said with an empty smile. "What's up?"

Charlotte's gaze was hard and piercing. "I'm sorry for what happened," she said. "I know it's hard. But I want you to promise me that you won't take it out on Oktavia, okay? It's not her fault, and-"

Kyoko's fists squeezed so tightly that the knuckles started to turn white. "Sure, Charlotte. Whatever you say."

"I mean it, Kyoko. I don't care if Sayaka came back for a while. Don't try to bring her out again."

"Absolutely," Kyoko said, still smiling. "Not a thing. Nope. Nothing."

Charlotte didn't respond. She just looked down at the ground, sighed, rose up, and walked away. Kyoko's smile dropped and she looked back down to the ground.

Kyoko sat by herself, not moving saved for her ragged breathing, barely blinking, doing nothing but listening and waiting. Any second now, any second now…

And then she heard.

"What?!" she heard Sayaka yell. "What do you mean she came back?"

That was it. Kyoko slowly stood up and went over to her pack. Retrieving a few items, she walked away from the meager campsite, away from her friends and their own troubles, off to find the only person she wanted to see.

She stalked off into the nearby wood, which was so small and so sparse that it barely even qualified as a forest. She walked past trees and shrubs until she came to a rocky hill.

Looking up at it, she sighed. "All right," she called. "Come on out."

The sound of hard claws scrabbling over stone was enough to perk a small attempt at a smile, a real one this time, even from her. Moments later Jerky leapt onto a cracked white stone and squeaked his greeting at her.

"Hey," she murmured, scratching him behind his crest. "You're a real hero, you know that?" Her shoulder still throbbed and probably would for a while, and she didn't mind one bit. "Thanks, Jerky."

Jerky cackled happily, letting out a low, clicking sound that sounded a lot like a purr. As she continued to scratch him, Kyoko pulled out the two turkey jerky sticks she had brought for him. "Here you go," she said, holding both of them toward him, causing all three of his eyes to widen in anticipation. "I'll get you a real reward once I can, but until then, you've earned this."

Jerky snatched the sticks out of her hand and, holding onto them with his tiny claws, started chomping down, holding on with his teeth while using his neck muscles to twist off chunk after chunk.

Kyoko sat down on a nearby rock to watch him. It was so strange, but despite having died and reunited with the only two other girls she had ever considered worth giving a damn about outside of her family, despite having traveled with and fought alongside them and saved their asses and had her own ass saved by them, despite the harrowing experience they had all just went through together, the only person she felt like seeing was this little alien dinosaur whose family had tried to kill her and ended up getting killed by her instead.

"It must be so easy," she murmured as she ran her fingers down his armored back. "I mean, you never have to worry about who you are and who your friends are. You're a valk. You're an adorable little killing machine who's going to grow up into a terrifying big killing machine, and you're happy with that. You're just happy being you. Gotta say, I envy yah."

Jerky finished gulping down his treats and looked back to her again. He seemed to sense that she was upset, as he cocked his head and let out a worried sounding chirp.

"Okay?" Kyoko sighed. "No, I abso-fucking-lutely am not okay. I just got told what a fuckup I am by my dead Father. I just realized that I'm in love with a girl who's not even herself anymore, and I might be in love with that her too. I promised that I'd save one, but I don't know if I can do it without killing the other. I'm a fucking mess, Jerky."

Jerky chirped again. Then he leapt onto her. Taking partially by surprise, Kyoko only just managed to keep herself from being knocked back by his weight. "Whoa, hey," she said, holding him up with her arms as he clung to the front of her shirt. "Easy there. You're getting sharp, you know."

In answer, Jerky burrowed his snout into her neck, fortunately the unburnt half, affectionately nuzzling her.

Sighing, Kyoko held him close. He was just so warm. And even through his thick hide, she could feel his tiny heartbeat, thumping against her chest.

"You know what's weird?" she said as she rubbed his neck muscles. "You're alive. I mean, you've got…insides, blood, a heart, everything. And I don't. Hell, I'm barely even real." She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting off the tears that were starting to prickle. "So why does it hurt so damn much? I can't take much more of this, Jerky! I mean, I did it! The big sacrifice, laid down my life and everything! It was supposed to end! It was supposed to stop hurting!"

Kyoko eased Jerky off her front and held him out so that they could look directly at each other. "Is this what I get for being such an asshole after Papa killed Mama and Momo and himself because of me? It's like God was saying, okay, well, you don't have to go to Hell, but you still have to suffer."

In response, Jerky clawed at the air with his little hands and whined.

"Yeah," Kyoko said, bringing him back in. "I guess I earned this. I guess even dying doesn't mean I get to escape."

She sat there, holding Jerky close while she thought on the mess she was in. Can't go back, can't stay in one spot, can't go forward. She was stuck, her friends were stuck, and it was all her fault. Mephisto might have been a sadistic, sociopathic monster, but she hadn't been wrong.

Kyoko was the one responsible for everything that had happened to her. Kyoko was the reason she had lost so much. She had been the one to push Papa into doing what he had done. She had been the one to drive Mami away. She had been the one responsible for Sayaka's downfall. And after all that she had cost them, it was a miracle that Mami and Charlotte were sticking with her.

She was trying to fix it, but everything she did only made things worse. She had gotten some of those she had lost back, but now risked losing them again. She had made a promise that she had no idea how to keep. And she still didn't know what to do.

Then she looked up and sighed. Reluctantly lifting Jerky off of her, she stood back and set him back on the rock.

That was wrong. There still was one thing she could do.

…

Oktavia von Seckendorff sat alone.

Mami had explained everything to her, or at least a much as she was able. Most of it was very confusing, having to do with a dream witch and shifting identities and punk rock and pro wrestling apparently, but there was one aspect in particular that immediately grabbed Oktavia's attention, something that was of earth-shattering significance to her.

After her explanation, Mami had tried to console Oktavia, to comfort her after what was absolutely a shocking revelation, but Oktavia really just wanted to be alone, and so, after some convincing, Mami had left her alone.

Oktavia sat in her wheelchair, staring off into the distance. She was in a fairly open part of the forest, with only a few trees around, so she got a great view of the night sky, but it didn't matter. She saw it, and yet saw nothing. There was nothing in the material world worthy of her attention.

She had come back.

A small brook was flowing next to her chair. Oktavia slowly leaned over the armrest and looked down into the water. The moon was shining brightly, so Oktavia was able to see clearly see her face.

Two wide, blue eyes. A round face with chubby cheeks. A little button-nose. Shaggy blue hair that hung just past her ears, kept to that length thanks to Charlotte and her knife (any longer, and it would get in the way while swimming or speeding via magic wheels). Though she was technically only a few months old, it was the face she was accustomed to seeing in the mirror, the face she had come to know as her own.

Except it wasn't her own.

It really belonged to another girl, a girl whose skin she had taken, a girl whom she had murdered.

Oktavia had been born out of Sayaka Miki's despair, and like the coocoo bird of legend, had destroyed her and claimed what was left for her own. She had slipped in, claiming her face, her body, and her voice, building her life over the ashes of Sayaka's.

But she hadn't taken her name. The name of Sayaka Miki was repulsive to her, something that was instinctively damaging, something she avoided at all costs. And that was just odd. After all, it was only a name. How could a name be so dangerous?

Well, now Oktavia understood. It was because Sayaka Miki wasn't truly gone. She was still there, sleeping right behind her eyes. And now she had been woken up. She had learned what had happened to her. She had learned about Oktavia.

And now she was once again asleep. But if she had woken up once already, what was going to keep her from waking up again?

More to the point, what was going to happen to Oktavia when she did?

Oktavia had always kind of assumed that if that happened, then she would simply remember everything about being Sayaka Miki, that Sayaka Miki wasn't really a different person, that they were really one and the same, and Oktavia had simply had part of herself sealed away by magic. Heck, she sometimes kind of wished that she would remember, that she would know what her past life had been like, that she could become the girl that Kyoko wanted her to be.

But now she knew better. She wasn't Sayaka Miki; she never had been. She was an invader, a doppelganger, someone walking around with a face that she had no right to. When Sayaka had woken up, it had been Oktavia that had fallen asleep. And now that Oktavia was once again awake, Sayaka was sleeping again.

She must hate me, Sayaka thought, touching a hand to her cheek. She must want to kill me. And why wouldn't she? I took everything from her. I'm the one that killed her, that took her away from her friends, from her family, from Kyo-

Then she heard the familiar sound of boots trekking through dead leaves.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Not her. Not now. Oktavia couldn't bear to face her, not like this.

Kyoko came walking out of the forest, one hand wrapped around her necklace, a sure sign that she was upset. Something else was clutched in her other hand.

Grimacing, Oktavia turned away. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

After staring silently at her for a bit, Kyoko walked the rest of the way to Oktavia's wheelchair and sat down on a nearby rock. She didn't say anything. She didn't do much of all. She just sat there, watching her.

Oktavia tried to ignore her, but she couldn't. She knew what Kyoko wanted. She knew what she was owed.

Swallowing back the lump in her throat, Oktavia glanced briefly at her, sighed, and said, "You must be so happy."

Kyoko's scarlet eyes were burning faintly in the dark. She said nothing.

"You got her back. Sayaka, I mean. Must've been nice. I mean, it's what you always wanted. It's what you always wanted me to be." Oktavia had to choke back the sob she felt forming. "But she's gone again, and I'm here again. So, there's that, and-"

Kyoko slowly reached toward her. Oktavia froze. What was Kyoko doing? Was she going to grab her? Strike her?

She didn't. Instead, she simply placed something on the wheelchair's armrest and then withdrew her hand.

It was a shiny red apple, taken from their supplies.

"It was pretty nice," Kyoko said, taking out an apple of her own. "Seeing her. Talking to her. Saying some stuff I always wanted to say. I'd like to see her again, someday." She shined the apple on her sleeve and gazed into the crimson skin. "But you know what? You're my friend too."

Then she bit into the apple, chomping off a big chunk of the flesh. Juice ran down the side of her mouth as she chewed.

Oktavia hesitated. Then she reach over and took the apple Kyoko had given her. She turned it in her hands, staring at it. Something about that apple felt so weirdly familiar, something important.

Something to do with Sayaka, probably.

Kyoko swallowed the chunk she had bit off and wiped her mouth. "I'm glad you're back," she said, and took another bite.

"Thanks," Oktavia murmured, and took a bite of her own.

The two of them said nothing further. They just sat together, eating apples in the night.

…

Mami found Charlotte leaning up against a trees, hands shoved into her pockets, robin-blue eyes staring balefully at the ground.

Pursing her lips, Mami walked over to lean against the same tree next to her. She didn't say anything. Charlotte would speak when she was ready.

It didn't take long, less than a minute, actually. "So," Charlotte said at last. "How'd your talk with Oktavia go?"

"Poorly," Mami sighed.

"I bet. Fuck."

"Hmmm." Mami looked up at the sky, at the twinkling stars above.

Though they looked real, she knew that they were fake. Just memories of stars, with no actual massive balls of gas burning in space. They were about as real as one of Mephisto's dreams.

Sighing, Charlotte pulled one hand out of her pocket and wrapped it around Mami's fingers. "Should I ask what sort of terrible thing Mephisto showed you to fuck with you before trying to make a deal with her?"

Mami glanced briefly at her. "The faces of several of the girls I had either convinced to make contracts or trained after they already had," she said at last. "All of them dead now."

"Jesus. I'm sorry, I just…" Charlotte breathed.

"What'd she show you?"

Charlotte made a face. "Well, as it turns out, I kind of resent a lot of people for ruining her lives, and she had a grand old time driving that point home."

"Oh. Well, that sounds pretty reasonable."

Charlotte shrugged. "Yeah, well, one of them's Kyoko."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Charlotte coughed. "Um, well, after you took Oktavia off to break the news, I had a little talk with Kyoko. I was worried that seeing Sayaka again would cause her to, uh, do something…unwise to try to bring her back, something that might hurt Tavi."

Mami winced. Oh, she could see where this was going. "And?"

"Well, she promised me that she wouldn't. She was actually really pleasant about it, like to a creepy amount. But damn. Mami, her eyes! She just looked so broken. And that's when I realized that, holy shit, she's still just a kid, a kid that's been broken over and over, and here I am, basically threatening her like an asshole-"

"Char," Mami said, turning around to lay her other hand on Charlotte's shoulder. "Don't."

"But-"

"Don't. What happened today wasn't your fault. What happened to her wasn't your fault. You were just trying to keep Tavi from getting hurt too."

"Yeah, but still…" Charlotte grimaced. "Man. It's just that, you know, with everything I learned today, well, it's got me all twisted up inside, and I couldn't bear the thought of Oktavia going through it too, so…"

"I get it. I do." Mami pulled Charlotte in for a hug, in part to comfort her, but also in part because she needed one too.

As they held one another, Mami asked, "How much do you remember?"

Charlotte let out a bitter laugh. "Zip. It's all gone. But I know stuff now, everything that I said out loud anyway. I know my name, my wish, how it killed me, and a few other things. I just don't…remember any of it."

"Oh, Char," Mami sighed as she squeezed her tighter. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah. Me too."

The two fell silent for a while. They just stood there, holding one another in the dark. Mami focused of the familiar feel of her wife's body, of her touch, of the scent of her hair, even of how Charlotte's tail tickled as it wrapped around Mami's upper thigh.

This is real, she thought. Maybe the stars aren't real. Maybe this world isn't really real. But she is. That's all I need.

Then Charlotte sniffed, and Mami felt something warm and wet splash against her shoulder.

"Char?"

Charlotte let out a small sob. "I can't do this anymore, Mami," she said. "I can't go on like this. Everywhere we go, something awful happens. If it's not the people hunting us, it's something else. Lily, the valks, the dockengauts, Mephisto. And Annabelle Lee is still somewhere out there. How much more are we supposed to take? And what is it even for?"

"I don't know," Mami admitted.

"Well, I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it, and I want to go home! But we can't go home! We can't ever go home! We threw it away, and then it got taken from us forever. But we can't keep going forward either, something else will just happen! This is Hell, Mami! Literally! Maybe Freehaven was one of the nice parts of Hell, but we're not in Freehaven anymore."

Mami swallowed back a sob of her own. "We'll find someplace," she promised. "Someplace safe. And then we'll start over. We'll build a new life. And we'll heal. All of us. We'll be safe, and we'll heal."

Charlotte was now crying openly into Mami's shoulder. "P-Promise?" she whispered.

"I promise," Mami said, and meant it. "There has to be somewhere we can go where they can't get to us. And then it'll be okay. You'll see."

…

The cave lay empty, dry, and abandoned. All trace of its visitors was gone, and the trap that had been laid had been destroyed. The malevolent presence that had lain in wait had been rendered helpless. A class of schoolchildren could set up camp and spend the night and have nothing to fear.

But that didn't mean that the presence was gone, though. It had been wounded and horribly weakened, but it wasn't dead. It couldn't die. It was too old, too strong, and too mean to die.

But it wouldn't be harming anyone else anytime soon.

The creature was invisible to mortal senses; not even the strongest and most sensitive of empaths would be able to detect it in its current state. But those who could would perceive it as a tiny flame, one that burned with every color in the rainbow. The flame would be flickering, sputtering, nearly going out, but it would persist. And though it was hurt, and though it was weak, it was very, very angry.

Then something happened that those spiritually sensitive might be able to pick up on. More presences entered the cave, their existences just as inexplicable as that of the flame. Only unlike it, they were strong and healthy. They had heard their sister's distress, and had come to investigate.

One by one they materialized around the flame, numbering five in total. They observed its struggle to stay lit, to continue existing. But none moved to help it. After all, they shared a common origin, experience, and thread of existence. That did not make them friends.

What happened next cannot be adequately explained using anthropomorphic terms. No one actually spoke. No words were used, no actual sound was made, no conventional means of communication was employed. Trying to fully quantify how such inexplicable beings conversed among themselves would require several natural laws to be rewritten and multiple groundbreaking theses to be published.

But if it were to be managed, the translation might go something like this.

"Well," a field of prismatic cubes "said," its tone rather snooty and smug. "This is probably the best thing I've seen this century."

"Shut up!" snapped the sputtering flame. "Shut up, or I swear I'll-"

"Empty bravado," observed the one that manifested as a pulsing emerald bubble, one with haloes of electricity running down its body in time with the pulses. "Fear. Embarrassment. Indignation."

"I am forever committing this to memory," chortled what looked like several slowly spinning fan blades cloaked in smoke. "Oh, this is just delicious."

"Fuck you!" hissed the flame.

"Make me."

The flame continued to gnash, curse, and insult, but it could do nothing, and they all knew it.

"So, it looks to me she's gone and thrown up most of her meals," the collection of cubes observed. "Does that mean she has to start over from scratch?"

"Nope," said the smoky blades. "Just the ones that turned down her sadistic offer. She seems to still have the ones who said yes."

"Huh. Well, good for the ones who stuck to their guns. What happens to them now?"

"Passed on," said the green bubble. "Released. Validation. Freedom."

The shrouded blades cackled. "Oh, that's just rich! Finally someone got the true death! I mean, it's been how long since the real Oblivion up and split?"

Enraged, the flame continued to hurl abuse at its "colleagues," but it did it no good. It was weakened beyond being able to back up any threat, and they all knew it.

Two of the beings had yet to speak, one of them a rosy haze filled with the translucent silhouettes of an endless number of tendrils, and the other a field of silver sparkling with white stars. They simply observed the drama taking place without comment. And then, while the others were busy tormenting Mephisto, they silently made their exit, rematerializing outside of the cave.

"I never thought I'd see the day," said the silver field, its voices soft, small, and almost childish. "I mean, this is really, really big."

"Indeed it is," said the rosy haze. "And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving being."

In this, they were both in agreement. Despite literally having no one else for consistent company, the Ideal Witches weren't all friends with one another for one reason or another, but Mephisto was easily the worst. Even the more capricious members of their number disliked her, hence the taunting.

"You know she's going to go after them," the silver field pointed out. "Those girls. And even weakened as she is, she's still dangerous."

"True, but there are certain rules in place that prevent her from directly acting against them. Besides, I'd say that they've earned our protection, at least for the time being."

The silver field shivered at that. Even as hurt as she was, Mephisto was not a being that either of them wanted to be on the bad side of. But the haze did have a point. Those girls deserved their protection.

"Besides, she does still have some power over them," the rosy haze continued.

"Really?" Oh, that couldn't be good. "How?"

"You came in late, but I was watching that whole drama play out from the beginning. And even though their pet lizard interrupted her usual sadistic bargain before it could go too far, it wasn't fast enough. One of those girls accepted her offer."

The silver field silently hovered in place as she digested this. "That could…complicate things," she said at last.

"Indeed. However, I feel that keeping an eye on them might be a mutually beneficial arrangement. In fact, I'd say that this could be a unique opportunity."

The silver field had no eyes with which to blink, but the stars managed to wink out for half-a-second anyway. "You mean Steel City?"

"We've been speaking of acquiring mortal agents for some time," the rosy haze pointed out. "And Mephisto has always rebuffed our attempts to rescue our sister. But in Mephisto's weakened state, I cannot think of a more opportune time."

All of this was true, but even so, the silver field was hesitant. "I don't know," she said. "They already look like they've been through so much…"

"Mephisto's going after them regardless," the rosy haze responded. "And you would have more influence if working through their determination. They seem on the verge of giving up their mission. Having another might strengthen their resolve, and give you more of a conduit in which to protect them."

"That is true," admitted the silver field. "I assume that you will be working to strengthen things on your end?"

"Mephisto's games have complicated things, but not destroyed them. I am confident they will work things out, and there will be plenty of love to go around."

"Very well," said the silver field, known to mortals as Irn, the Ideal Witch of Determination. "It's decided then."

"Indeed it is," said the rosy haze, also known as Nefflin, the Ideal Witch of Love. "Let us hope that this arrangement works out, for our sakes and theirs."

…

Now I've gone and made Charlotte cry. If I wasn't going to Hell already…

So, uh, super depressing note to end things on. But hey, Walpurgis Nights is still a thing, if you want a more optimistic look at the afterlife and how things could have gone.

Anyway, this might be the last chapter for a while, since I'm going to be taking a break after the comeback tour's wrapped up (ironic, I know), and I, you know, got three other stories running.

And finally, if you'd rather not make your own interpretations of this Arc and want to know what was going on in my head, check my tumblr sometime...I'm gonna say Wednesday. I'll post a post-arc reflection then.

Until next time, everyone.