To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
Huh, do I see Rin not misgendering Minako in the mysterious monologue there? Interesting. Dunno what that's about. Anyway...
[X] Aim at her gem. [DIFFICULTY 3] (This is a very small target, even with everything going on. But you may manage to hit something...)
If we miss the small target, there's still a decent chance we hit her in a less critical but still damaging spot. I'm assuming that Mami won't leave herself more exposed by taking longer to aim or anything like that, just that she has a lower chance of hitting.
I suppose technically we don't know for sure, but the first one of the narrations (in "CHAPTER FINALE - 2") starts out with "My name is Rin Saitou", so...
You fire again and she deflects it. Another shot, but this time, she can't block the gases from your gun. The muzzle flash scorches her hair, knocking her head to the side as she raises her hands to try and protect herself. She drifts sideways, six wings open, all the myriad eyes upon them glaring down towards you.
"You stand high and mighty among a flock of sycophants!"
Another shot, and she catches the bullet. The spherical lump spins and whirs to a stop, easily the size of her torso as it whizzes down and pushes her backwards.
"You fight as though you've never known struggle!"
You fire directly at your own bullet. Your shots connect with one another; the one in her wings explodes into shards, the one behind it flattened into a yellow brass coin. Rin is peppered by shrapnel, her torso torn, her legs injured, one of her arms rendered nearly nonfunctional.
"So you prey on the weak in an attempt to make yourself strong."
"I gave them a place to live," Rin hisses back as she spins her wings around. "You have the face of a pouting child. You do not know what it took to get to where I-"
"I know enough."
You fire again. And again. And again. Each shot is deafening. Each shot parts clouds. Each shot gets harder and harder for her to deflect.
"I am Mami Tomoe. And you took my will. You gave me false answers. You made it that much harder to learn myself."
Another shot, and her defenses are wide open once again. Her soul gems float over her head. One white, one pitch-black. You raise your cannon.
"And I won't let you hurt anyone else!"
You fire.
It doesn't take both gems out, but the obsidian gem shatters. There's a blast of power, a flickering of screams and cries of pain as thing explodes. Rin's white gem cracks, her eyes turning glassy before she shakes her head and glances upwards. Her halo gets hazy, her wings drooping before she forces them back up.
And then she notices the blackened shards. "Oh...oh no...ohnonono no no no no no you killed her you killed HER."
You reload your cannon. Rin flails in an attempt to keep herself aloft. Her wings are starting to falter, her eyes fluctuating between unfocused and lucid.
She turns towards the seed, away from you.
"No, no." You raise your cannon.
She raises her wings in an attempt to block your shot.
And she is blown away from you. Her wings are not enough to block the blow as she is knocked aside, further than normal. She flies backwards through the sky, wings flailing about. You raise your cannon once more to finish the job.
But then you see what's happening. She's using your momentum to force a glide. Even with her legs dangling uselessly below her, with her arms weak, jaw heavy, blood leaking like fuel.
She is trying to reach the seed.
Your eyes widen as gravity begins to take you downwards. You raise your gun. A shot rips past her, but she manages to evade it. Another shot, but she's getting harder to see among the buildings of Mitakihara. Another shot, but you can't spot her.
You take a deep breath. 'She's nearing the seed! She's almost to the seed!'
[=]
[=]
Sayaka Miki-Sakura watches as the magi around her begin to falter. Anyone still under Rin's control immediately drops, their eyes watering, their vision blurry. Some stop holding back tears. Others go from losing control to outright terror.
"W-where am I?! What's going on?!"
"I want to go home!"
"W-where's my arm?! I can't feel my arm!"
She looks to the leaders, to Saskia and Masaki, who both glance at each other. "Is...did you kill Rin?"
Sayaka looks between them, then to the seed as she receives Mami's message. "No...oh nonono no."
[=]
Kyouko Miki-Sakura leaves the underground bunker where Rin kept her most trusted members. But upon reaching the surface, she finds one of the magi that was pursuing her in a fetal position. She sobs openly into her hands.
'Kyouko. Something's gone wrong up here. They just dropped. It's like their will to fight just up and vanished.'
Kyouko raises her hand. 'Yeah I just...just saw. What's going on?'
'M-Mama!'
Kyouko's head whips back south, towards Mitakihara. 'Mina?!'
'Mami blew apart half of Rin's soul gem. She's almost at the seed!'
[=]
Minako Miki-Sakura watches in silent horror as Rin begins to near the seed. They whip their bat behind their body. They're still in a haze. They're still nauseous. They still want to leave, more than anything.
And yet they still charge ahead. They can't let Rin get to the seed. They leap upwards, feet leaving a crater in the rooftop of their old school, an awkward flying Rin nearing the grief seed.
But then, in a flash...the grief seed is gone. Minako's eyes widen in surprise as Rin nears it, and then as suddenly as she does...it vanishes.
So was the seed Rin's sister...? That was my bet, anyway. That her sister witched, and the sister at her home is a replacement from another universe. And she slotted her soul gem into her sister's grief seed.
Which sounds like something that would compound trauma, like, a lot.
The orange-haired one is speaking. "-of her twin's body. Rin has been feeding her long enough. She's a drain on her resources and it's getting in the wa-"
In pitch dark, I go walking in your landscape. Broken branches trip me as I speak. Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there. There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck.
Stay away from these rocks. We'll be a walking disaster. Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there. THERE THERE Why so Green and Lonely? Heaven sent you to me. WE ARE ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN.
