Notes: Episode 122, "Believe in Love! Ami, a Kind-Hearted Soldier". Or, "The one where Ami is invited to Mugen Academy."
Episode 122
It was a ritual of a sort, though Ami would not have seen it that way.
The epilogue to a story. The period at the end of a sentence.
Ami liked notes. They helped her to organize her thoughts, to see though an excess of details to the facts that mattered. The more complicated the problem, the more notes she liked to have.
This matter of Talismans and Messiahs had been a very, very complicated problem.
The battle was done and, if there were any higher powers and they were indeed kind, it would remain that way for a little while, at least.
They desperately needed a rest.
Usagi desperately needed a rest.
And Ami needed a period at the end of this sentence.
There were three boxes, near identical, neatly lined and hidden beneath a blanket which was behind several pairs of formal shoes which were on a tall shelf at the back of her closet.
Notes and calculations about missing princesses and dark kingdoms, aliens and trees, crystals and futures.
Soon to be joined by a fourth box.
Ami had considered disposing of all. Handing it over to Rei and her flames. But the data there. The data. What if they needed it again some day? What if there was some detail she couldn't remember? Every time Ami considered disposing of the evidence she would become obsessed with the fallibility of human memory, even a memory as remarkable as hers.
Paper, though. Paper could be trusted.
So the boxes remained, and should there one day be consequences, Ami would pay them.
She carefully ticked in another handful of pages, covered with notes and ideas about the identity of the Messiah of Silence. She'd never been able to disprove that it was Hotaru Tomoe, but felt no pride in that. Ami would much rather have been wrong than watch that poor sweet girl suffer, or have need to comfort a grieving Chibi-Usa.
Standing up from her bed, Ami made a final visual sweep of her room. She'd cleaned out her drawers and carefully reviewed all of her notebooks. Everything to do with the Talismans or the Messiah or the Death Busters or Mugen Academy was now safety stored in this small box.
Her eyes fell on the envelope on her desk.
Almost everything.
Ami had been surprised to receive the envelope, with its official Mugen Academy seal. Inside, a registration ticket to the upcoming practice examination to be held at the Academy … and a formal invitation to attend the Academy itself.
Ami had not officially passed their exam, the letter acknowledged, but had no doubts she would. Please come to the practice examination, it invited. Someone will be waiting afterward to give you an official tour and welcome you to our school.
She'd wondered briefly, after the fact, if Viluy was meant to be her guide that day.
None of the others knew. She'd felt … uncomfortable about it, this invitation from the enemy. Uncomfortable about her eagerness.
Ami's heart had leapt at the invitation. Mugen Academy, a prestigious school with unparalleled standards, forging new ground in every possible field! Even with all they suspected about the school, Ami couldn't ignore how she felt about the possibility of attending.
Giddy. Ami Mizuno had felt GIDDY.
That it was now nothing but a heap of rubble by a water-logged crater brought tears to Ami's eyes.
She couldn't tell the others. It felt too much like grieving for the enemy, and they had their own to grieve for first.
The envelope joined the notes and papers in the box. Ami secured the lid, slid the box under the blanket next to its sisters, and closed the closet door.