[X] Swap Oriko for Mami
You roll your shoulders. "Fuck it. Let's go, Mumi."
Oriko nods and quickly runs off as Mami watches you and Takane walk past. She lifts the weapon over her shoulder, her armor clanking and rattling as her coat and cape flutter in the wind.
"Mumi?" she asks.
You shrug. "It sounded cute in my head."
Takane also shrugs, far more cutely than you. "I believe you should workshop those nicknames a little more."
"I might."
You all begin to move, right into a relatively empty part of town. As you do, you begin to realize that the war's coming. Conflict is coming.
You should probably tell your friends. You're terrified for the other students at your school. You're scared as hell. And your powers tell you that both Takane and Mami are actively trying to ignore the worst of it.
You're walking by a trainline, your feet tapping against a concrete barrier. You, your girlfriend, and Mami are on your way towards a flooded trainyard. Some parts of Mitakihara never truly recovered after the disaster two decades ago, and the trainyard is one of them.
Every other part of the city, despite the damage, had some infrastructure that could be easily repaired. The trainyard, however, was utterly flooded. And as you walk there, you can see the main warehouse, where the repairs were done most frequently, just barely poking the roof over the tide. The structure is a catastrophe, barely holding together as years of water damage eat away at its foundations. Several of the taller trains poke just above the waves, sporting gnarled rooftops and shattered windows. The occasional sea life can be seen passing by the trains, and as the three of you reach the station, you use those train cars as a trail towards the old warehouse.
Behind you, Mami coughs. She stares at the back of your head, and before she asks anything, you sense her...inquisitiveness? Questioning?
It's definitely some kind of feeling. You turn on your heel. "Yes?"
"Ah." She blinks. "So...we are reawakening a witch, yes?"
"Yeah."
By your side, Takane nods. "I believe it's the fastest way to understand what Oriko was talking about. She was discussing some quirk of Minako's ability."
"A...quirk?" Mami shrugs. "I mean, I believe in the ability of an empath to deeply affect witches, but I am curious as to what she meant."
"Trust me, I'm fucking confused, too." You sit down. "I mean, I thought that stealing witch parts was the peak."
"Maybe she's wrong?"
Takane shakes her head. "I don't believe she is."
"Lady Rin still made mistakes despite having a clairvoyant on her side. Perhaps Oriko's predictive powers aren't as strong as she believes they are?"
"And it ain't worth a shot?" you ask.
"I wasn't saying that. I was saying that I believe we are taking an unnecessary risk."
"Well, I believe it's worth taking."
Mami blinks. "Well...actually, about your powers. You have near-perfect planning ability, yes? Planning and tactical risk assessment."
"Correct."
"What do your powers say?"
Takane stops on the spot, takes a breath, and looks off to the side. She bites her finger, and you can see in her mind that the scaffold in her head has frozen solid, stock-still, as she searches for a way to answer without tacitly agreeing with Mami.
You exhale. "Shit."
Mami glances between the two of you, then she turns to Takane. "Then why are you still going along with it?"
Takane just smiles and it makes your heart flutter. "Because sometimes, I'm wrong."
[=]
Your name is Sayaka Miki-Sakura, and you and your wife are sitting across from Oriko Mikuni. You probably shouldn't be drinking in front of a child, but you and your wife are sharing a big flask of some extremely foul vodka from Toji and Tatsuya's bar.
It tastes like paint thinner. Your wife's face scrunches up as she chugs directly out of the flask before passing it to you.
All the while, Oriko pours herself champagne. There's no reason to hide it from you; the fighting had ruined most of the bottles that she turned out to have stashed away. She keeps her eyes locked on you.
"I believe...I should clarify some things."
"Yes. You should," Kyouko mutters. "Alright, ground rules: no cryptic bullshit. Be as clear and as thorough as you can. My wife's a cop; she can take your booze privileges away."
"Honestly, it's irresponsible that you have it at all."
Oriko just looks you directly in the eye. She slowly, deliberately wraps her hands around the base of the glass. She keeps her eyes locked directly on you as she slowly,
slowly takes a big bubbly sip of some disproportionately expensive champagne. You can hear the soft
fizz as she swallows it, and throughout the entire process she doesn't even so much as blink.
Kyouko snickers.
You just sigh. "I mean, congrats on being petty, I guess."
"Come on, it was a good bit."
You're not about to undermine your authority by agreeing. So instead, you try to re-rail the conversation. "So how does your power typically work? Let's start with that so we can at least have an idea on how your specific clairvoyance operates. Wishes vary depend on who asks for them, what the motivation was, et cetera.
"I wished to heal a boy. My intent was to protect and have him for myself." It's unflattering. It's blunt. You probably wouldn't be this hard on yourself but you have fresh blood on your hands.
Kyouko winces at your words and Oriko blinks twice.
"My wish was to heal someone, but it was ultimately a selfish wish. It gave me the ability to heal myself and others, and after honing it, that ability became near-instant."
"I have illusory powers," your wife adds. "I wished for people to listen to my asshole dipshit dad. It gave me the power to cast illusions that felt real."
You both look directly at Oriko. She takes in a deep breath.
"I wished to see my purpose. My raison d'etre." She glances between the both of you. "I felt purposeless in life, powerless in my home, and I wished to see what my reason to be was. It granted me the power to see my future."
[=]
In another part of the city, you are Minako, and you sit and watch as your girlfriend stands. "I was wrong. My powers sometimes scream at me, say to sit down, say to freeze in place, because there is no best-case scenario. Because sometimes, the situation is bad enough that there is no path forwards.
"My power lets me see the potential tactical paths forwards, and sometimes it offers no good solution. There is often a case where things are simply too awful to continue. The situation will rapidly deteriorate, regardless of what I do. My power screams at me to stop.
"And up until recently, that's what I did."
[=]
Oriko drinks more of her champagne. "My power does not let me see others' futures as well as my own. And the future itself shifts constantly. As it turns out, fate is not a consistent, rational thing. There is no such thing as fate. There is no such thing as a set future. Only causes and consequences.
"I made the mistake of believing that the future could be easily read. And that I could affect that future.
"I was wrong."
[=]
"I was wrong to think that. Wrong to think that there was never a good way forwards because sometimes the best decision is one made irrationally. A bad idea is sometimes what you need to move forwards."
[=]
"The world is not a rational, reasonable place. People do not operate on pure logic. And we shouldn't." Oriko swallows. "We really, truly shouldn't. Because when we reduce people to algorithms, we forget who they are."
[=]
"Minako taught me that."
[=]
"Kirika taught me that."
[=]
"And I love them for it."
[=]
"And I loved her for it."
You and your wife watch as she rubs her eyes. At some point while speaking, Oriko had started to cry; you had half a mind to reach over and wipe her tears, but you both know that this is something that she has to do herself. She swallows.
"My powers are inconsistent. They do not work as they used to. I think...a lot of it does deal with how I see the world now. How she made me see it. My future is no longer clear, and it is not because I am in a different universe. I don't even think any universe is rational. Incubator told me that the world operates on a balance of despair and hope, but I believe that to be an oversimplification.
"We float upon a pond of entropy and decay. I thought to change Kirika's future. Her life ended unceremoniously in the midst of Walpurgisnacht. I told her not to play a hero.
"She did it anyway."
[=]
"Minako didn't contract because of a well-thought out decision. And honestly, my fears of retaliation are what brought me to Mitakihara with my fathers. I was terrified of facing The Glow. And to be honest, I'm still scared now."
Takane rubs her glasses with her shirt. She puts them back on her face. "Of course it's probably a bad idea to rehatch a witch. I never have, because there is no reason to. But what fear is there in taking the plunge? We will never know if we don't try." She smiles.
You want to kiss her on the lips right there, and from the corner of your eye you see Mami blink, then blush, then turn away. She rubs the side of her cheek and takes a breath.
"I...still am not sure," She mutters. "I am not sure if this is a good idea." She looks at you. "Do you?"
MINAKO OPTIONS
[] "No. It's a bad idea. Let's go home."
[] "I was built on bad ideas."
[=]
Oriko's finished. You can tell by the way she folds her hands in front of her. "I...I apologize. It was supposed to be an explanation of my powers, but it turned into a manifesto about the pointlessness of fate."
Your wife shakes her head. "It's fine. Powers are based on you as a person. They're fueled by your intent, your understanding, your mental health, your emotional landscape..."
"All of what you said was relevant," you add. "It also kind of explains why you weren't that helpful in the Glow."
"I already knew I was going to be turned away from The Glow, ever since I was pulled by Yuri." Oriko wipes her nose. Her eyes are puffy now. "It...there was no possible way for me to remain. But I...I believe I am undergoing 'spell rejection'."
You glance to Kyouko, and she stares right back at you. "Yeah...yeah." She scratches the back of her neck. "But you can still see the future."
"I can. But it is...unclear. Even less so than it used to be. I wish I could say otherwise." She looks to the both of you. "But I also know that the best way for Minako to learn is for them to perform on their own. For them to learn on their own. For them to..."
"Fuck up," you finish.
Oriko winces. "I...yes. That."
SAYAKA VOTE: WRITE THREE QUESTIONS TO ASK ORIKO. THEY CAN BE AS LONG AND AS COMPLICATED AS YOU WANT.
