View source for 2018-09-20 - Mine

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
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! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Mine'''
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|'''Summary''':<br>
''Mikoto struggles in the wake of her destruction.''
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| '''Who:'''<br>
[[Mikoto Minagi]]
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| '''Where:'''<br>
Akihabara Electric Town
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| '''OOC - IC Date:'''<br>
2018-09-20 - Shortly after Hope Floats II
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|}

 <SoundTracker> Akira Yamaoka - A Stray Child https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGLTUiETIGs

Mikoto commands a power overwhelming and agonising, and it pours over her, past her, crowding out the little light she holds to her chest until she can scarcely feel it. She clutches at the child and begs forgiveness with strangled breath and she is not apologising to them, not at all.

She has never fled from battle before, but for the order of another.

She fled from this.

She is afraid, and she has not the strength to rise, as she is rocked by her own inexorable might. The others are not afraid. They have the strength to stand against it. She is too wounded to assist. They are not all wounds of the body.

... could it be her power which twisted their magic into this?<br>
... could it be how the world sees her?<br>
... could it be a true reflection of Miroku?

Her lips shaped a word and the word was 'mine,' for that terrible gaze was hers, hers, hers.

It is so unlike the power which restores the world, which lightens the scouring of her shoulders to nothing, which brings Mai's precious gift of her kimono back to its pristine state, which allows the child in her arms to look up again.

It only carves away with sharp edges.

Her face is drawn in uncertainty as the child disentangles from her and laughs at the spectacle. She watches as they crowd back in to point at the float which never was a monster at all.

She fumbles for her blade, beside her, a hand curling about its hilt. Those red sigils like eyes have faded, now. Its menace is muted, yet still present in its exquisite edge. It is her menace, evident in every inch of her magic.

"I don't understand," Mikoto says, her voice trembling as the fingers of her other hand trail down the flat of its blade, as if to confirm to herself that it was just a trick, that Miroku is still here and she has not failed in her most sacred task.

But though she listens, she finds no revelation in that obsidian sheen.

Or - perhaps - she still doesn't want to.

She finds Miroku's case midst the crowd, stifles her threatening aura with its sheath. She finds herself accosted by a mother joyful that her child got to have such a special part in their play. Mikoto does not correct her, does not think of the way that tiny thing waned in her arms.

Untransformed, the world restored to happiness, it all feels so far away.

"Evil succeeds only when good people do nothing!" Comes the cry from the crowd, led by children's voices, and there are so many things Mikoto stands aside to let happen.

She ducks down a sidestreet, leaps from fire-exit to windowsill to roof, and flees both celebration and friends. From distant tower she watches the floats travel through the district, arms coiled around the black case of her blade, cheek resting against its curve.

"I wanted to..." Mikoto murmurs into the breeze, the conclusion of her words stolen by the sadness in her eyes. She wanted to have fun with her friends. She wanted to make Yumi and her most important girls happy by not fighting when her enemies were civil. When an enemy appeared which she could fight without making her friends sad, she wanted to be able to defeat it without complications. When the true form of its gaze fell upon her, she wanted to --

She's trying so hard, but it keeps getting messed up.

There was no hope reflected in that towering presence, as it showed her strength to her. Only annihilation.

But if evil succeeds when good people do nothing - what happens when bad people do nothing?

Can a girl like her possibly do anything other than destroy?

They are questions with answers laid plain by what has happened, and Mikoto is a girl uniquely suited to ignoring their revelations.

Even though the <span style="color:#444444;">'''truth'''</span> is right in front of her.

[[Category:Cutscenes]]