Kyouko actually invested as many grief cubes into the group as Mami did. Kyouko had over 100 GCU when she joined.
As someone else put it around the time she joined. Kyouko and Mami when they split in this timeline pretty much each pursued their own dreams. Mami of starting a group and bringing safety to everyone, while Kyouko pursued her own personal welfare. Kyouko put aside much of her own dream when she joined Mami's group, and donated an equal share of GCU to what Mami put up.
That's a very good point, and I don't think Mami would begrudge Kyouko her retirement fund. Kyouko, however, is probably starting to consider the wider world, especially with the Mageocracy, the Non-Serene, and the Tokyo situation, and beginning to see her own dream in a new light.
Hmm you raise a good point, I'd forgotten most of these. Though you'll find that most girls by themselves don't really manage to keep much of a grief cube reserve. Having one GCU reserve is pretty good for someone solo unless they're an elite.
How about I give you +15 GCU from people contributing their private reserves, and call that accounting for everyone pre-Seto besides Kyouko? I think at least some of them I had contribute cubes and some probably wouldn't have any to spare at all.
I admit it would be nice, but
@racnor has a good point that they might consider those Grief Cubes "theirs", no matter that the original vets contributed "their" cubes to the pot in Turn 1.
Traded around wouldn't affect the total, and Fun With Magic is already accounted for in our budgeting.
What he means is that the girls would do such things themselves, independent of the group, without telling anyone. Essentially losses to corruption.
Incidentally, this is probably one of the reasons the Nagoya group is still hurting for cubes, despite the XCom lifestyle, despite probably "culling" weaker groups in order to keep Central's DS low, and despite demanding cubes and/or other tribute from many vassals: every meguca in Central probably has their own little "side-stash" that they're keeping from the group, one that they're slowly building due to the selfish nature of their group and all the criminality they are no doubt a part of. Hell, there are probably dozens of cubes in hidden stashes that nobody even remembers, since they were put together by meguca who are now dead, thanks to XCom.
We, in contrast, have a zero rate of corruption, mostly because 1) we're so big on the togetherness and group effort thing, 2) we're practically one big cult of personality centered around "Mother Mami", and 3) we are so quant-specialized that we no doubt keep the GCUs tallied down to the single cube at all times.
