Kanna Hijiri witching out is not a punishment to voters, nor is Mami guaranteed to never be traumatized by learning sad truths about the world she lives in.
We shouldn't expect to be immune to story development just because it would make Mami sad! And it doesn't mesh with the fact that Mami has previously been traumatized by developments in the quest.
Hijiri witching out infront of the pleides, Mami and Sayaka because we didn't instantly cleanse everyone, instead opting to do it minutes later would not be seen as a punishment?
I... What?
*groan*
Those developments your talking about, that traumatized Mami were the direct result of voting decisions on our end. It was our choice to reveal the lich bomb, the metabomb, feathers which was an unintended development but still unwittingly caused by Sabrina. It's Sabrina that drives the plot and our actions that largely bring about consequences.
Even if what you're talking about is somewhat plausible (though not very probable), it disregards everything about how Firn has been operating this quest since... well, since the very beginning. For much the same reason that main characters aren't going to die or witch without a chance for Sabrina to react, Firn is not going to screw us over on improbable and highly technical issues. If the witch bomb becomes an issue, we will get fair warning.
Police officer politely asks suicidal guy to please step away from the edge of the bridge so they can talk about it.
GET ON THE GROUND AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SE- oh okay bye then.
Mindset matters. When you say things like "we have every right", particularly in the context of further traumatizing a panicking, defeated opponent, you look quite a lot more like the latter. I understand that the thing should end up turned off for her safety and... well, not really the safety of the people around her, she's no longer a threat, but certainly at least her own safety. But that doesn't mean that the right thing to do is GET ON THE GROUND AND &etc. There's a reason I'm suggesting ordering her to cleanse herself, and resorting to grief-seed-onna-stick if that fails, rather than advocating further violence.
Actually, there are several situations in which attempted suicide is met with tasers and barked orders, mainly ones where other people's lives are put in danger.
Remember, I was actually a cop once. I actually dealt with people like this once. Hijiri witching is not her standing on the lip of a building, it's her driving her car through oncoming traffic, or a suicide bombing. The actual procedure for this situation would probably be to smack her with antimagic and then gem her until we could get her into a safe space, sine that's the closest meguca equivalent to what the actual procedure for the equivalent dangerous suicide is.
Even if she was grief spiraling, there's no reason not to blast her with anti-magic anyway, because it's perfectly non-lethal while still removing her ability to threaten us. Our first concern should be the safety of us and the people around us.
"We got her," you pulse into the ether, watching as the girl thrashes in her bonds. "It- I guess she's Hijiri. She has the memory field thing. She's panicking, hard - I'll try to calm her down."
You exhale, eyeing the girl who's gone limp in the bindings, exhausted. You can hear her breathing from where you are, ragged gasps that shake her body.
"We're on our way," Kazumi snaps over telepathy.
"Sabrina, why is she a magical girl?" Niko asks, almost pleading. "Why?"
"I'll find out," you answer, and smile at your friends. It hasn't exactly been a long fight, or even much of a fight, really, but still. "Good work, Sayaka," you say, and slide smoothly into telepathy. Just to her and Mami. "But keep it up. Don't bunch up with us, keep antimagic ready just in case, yeah?"
"Thanks," Sayaka says, flashing you a bright grin. She slides a step to the right, away from you, using the motion to disguise slipping her hand under her cloak.
Antimagic.
But that's a good point right there, like a bucket of ice sliding down your spine: Limit Esterni is Kazumi's finisher move, akin to Mami's Tiro Finale. How much magic would Hijiri have burned through in those two shots? You take a step forward, one hand rising to wipe away the Grief, but-
Your magic simply finds no purchase, sliding right off. It's potent, whatever Niko worked into that field. Mami shoots you a concerned look, and you smile at her, taking her hand.
"Good work, Mami," you murmur. "You were amazing out there."
Mami gives you a warm smile, squeezing gently. "Thank you," she says. "But you have things to take care of right now, right?"
"Yeah," you say, and return your attention to Hijiri. You move a little closer, footsteps scraping over the bare concrete roof of the warehouse. A curl of wind blows past, setting your jacket flapping a bit. "Miss Hijiri?"
The girl starts, lifting tear-reddened eyes to meet yours. She looks exactly like Niko, right down to the shade of yellow her eyes are and the ridiculous twintails. "Please leave me alone," she whispers. "I'll do- I'll give the memory blocker back, anything."
Something isn't adding up here.
Priorities.
You sigh, sitting back on seemingly thin air and curling your feet up on a cushion of Grief instantly formed of the utility fog. A moment of concentration thins out the density of your Grief fog, condensing the particles so that it's less noticeable. And you can feel Mami tug Sayaka and Saki a step backwards, away, so as not to crowd Hijiri.
Best Mami.
"Will you lower the field, for starters?" you ask, leaning forward a little. You can't really approach more than a few meters - you don't exactly know where the memory field boundary stops, but you try to make yourself as unthreatening as possible. Open. "I'd like to cleanse your Soul Gem. I can't do that with it up."
"I can't," Hijiri says, expression twisting. "I don't know how. I only had enough time to figure out how to make it work."
She's holding a coherent conversation, at least.
You sigh, tapping your Soul Gem with a finger and drawing forth the thin film of Grief clouding it. Hijiri's eyes follow the motion, clearly interested.
"Mami, Sayaka?" you ask, twisting to look at your friends. "Saki?"
Mami smiles, slipping her Soul Gem gently from the flower-shaped pin and presenting it to you. Sayaka fumbles hers to present to you, and Saki cottons on a few moments later, presenting you with her Soul Gem, too. You cleanse them all at once, giving them a smile before returning your attention to Hijiri.
"Look, I'm not going to hurt you," you say. "I promise. I'm here to help, not to... persecute."
"I don't- then let me go," Hijiri says. "Before she gets here."
"Niko?" you ask.
Hijiri flinches, straining back as far as she can in the double cocoon of paper and Grief you have her wrapped in.
You'll take that as a yes, then.
"Right," you say, blowing out a slow breath. She's... she's afraid of Niko? You're not really sure. "Miss Hijiri, do you need to have your Soul Gem cleansed? You were burning quite a lot of magic there."
She bites her lip.
"Dammit, Hijiri, I'll use a pole if I have to," you say, folding your arms, struck for a moment by a mental image of yourself a Grief Seed taped to a stick and poking at Hijiri. "If I free one arm, will you drop the memory device?"
"Will you let me go?" Hijiri asks.
"I'll help you," you say.
Something flashes over Hijiri's face. "It's the only thing protecting me right now," she says. "Throw me a Grief Seed."
"Why don't you use the Clear Seed?" you ask.
"I- Throw me a Grief Seed," she insists. "I'll tell you after."
And just what, exactly, happened to her doing anything? To be fair, you've established you're not letting her go. Which leaves her bargaining... and that's exactly what she's doing. Can't blame her for pragmatism, you suppose.
"Why did you attack Niko?" Saki asks, footsteps clacking sharply against the concrete of the roof. She pushes her glasses-monocle up her nose.
Hijiri flinches at the mention of Niko's name. "Give me a Grief Seed first."
"Saki," you say telepathically. Just her, Mami, and Sayaka. "Let's try and calm her down first before asking her questions? She has to be running high on Grief, too."
Saki glances at you, frowning. "She doesn't get to make demands!" she snaps. "She attacked us!"
"Something isn't adding up," you say. "And I'm not saying that she isn't guilty, but I'm not going to treat her inhumanely."
Saki's attention shifts back to Hijiri. "Fine," she says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a half-used Grief Seed. She holds it up. "How are we doing this?"
"Sayaka?" you call. "Free her arm? And, uh, where's your Soul Gem, Hijiri?"
You're fairly certain it's the pin at the top of her jacket, given that that's where Niko has hers. But you want to set Hijiri at ease, not ratchet her paranoia up.
"My neck," Hijiri says.
"Got it," Sayaka says, frowning and making a fist, which she flattens out. Sheets of paper grey and flake away as you shift your Grief to suit, freeing the blonde's left arm and exposing her Soul Gem.
Saki lobs the Grief Seed underarm at Hijiri, who nearly fumbles the catch.
"I'll want that back later," you warn. And you can't help the wince at how full her Soul Gem is, just from looking at it. It's not in the danger zone yet, but there's enough to dim the Gem's radiance. "It's nearly full, anyway."
Hijiri touches the Grief Seed to her Soul Gem, sighing quietly as the Grief drains away. "Thank you," she mutters, before flipping the Seed back towards Saki.
"Let me?" you ask, holding your hand out for the Seed. "I'll refresh it."
"Now talk," Saki says, wordlessly handing you the Grief Seed.
"She told me to," Hijiri blurts. "I- I just wanted to run, to get away. She found me, told me you'd hunt me down. Told me I was some kind of... experiment."
"Who?" you ask, stomach going abruptly into freefall. You feel like you know the answer already.
"Yuuri," Hijiri says. "That's- that's what she said her name was."
"Who-" Saki's eyebrows all but meet in the center of her forehead as she realises. "Yuuri."
"That's her!" Hijiri says, suddenly eager to please. "She- we broke into her lab, and she let me have the memory device when I figured out what it was."
"... you don't have the Clear Seed, do you," you say, absently emptying out the Grief Seed. Just to a refreshed state, not to Clear Seed status, and you hand it back to Saki.
"She took it. The special Grief Seed," Hijiri says. "It- I don't think it was what she was looking for, but she took it."
"What was she looking for?" Saki asks. There's fury on her face, lines slowly etching into deep anger.
"I don't know," Hijiri responds. "She didn't tell me. I... I don't think she found it, whatever she was looking for."
"Oh, god," Sayaka mutters, almost too quiet to hear.
"Why did you even go along with that?" you ask.
"Wouldn't you?" Hijiri asks, and laughs bitterly. She waves down at herself, cocooned in paper and Grief. "She wasn't even wrong. You hunted me down, didn't you?"
Well, shit. You're inclined to agree with Sayaka, really. Dear Madokami on high, what even is this. You close your eyes for a second, squeezing them shut. Mami approaches, touching the back of her palm gently to your hand, and you grab her, drawing strength from the touch.
"Saki, are you telling the rest of the Pleiades?" you pulse telepathically.
"Yes," Saki snaps. "They're coming."
"Right," you say, and look at Hijiri again. "Can you tell us anything more about Yuuri?"
"Are you going to let me go?" Hijiri asks. "I just... want to leave. Find a peaceful life somewhere else."
Voting opens
[] What do you tell Hijiri?
[] Wait for the Pleiades (follow Kazumi's lead)
[] Start searching anew
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
=====
It'll help decisionmaking to know that no, the Pleiades aren't going to be calm about this.
Given we have confirmation of more than one perp it should probably be possible to redirect most of the Pleiades back to the search to get breathing room to do a good interrogation.
Downside is that takes our aces out of the search (Sabrina, Mami, probably Sayaka, probably Kasumi, at least).
[] Tell Hijiri that we went after her because she helped attack them and steal things, and then attacked us. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Yuuri manipulated her. We want to stop her from messing with others.
[] Reassure Hijiri that no-one thinks less of her for being created by a wish, certainly not us, since we were created by a wish.
Welp, it does turn out it's not gonna be that easy. Poodles.
[ ] Lay the blame as think as you can in Yuuri.
[ ] The search must go on.
So...
[ ] A peaceful life is exactly something we're trying to offer Magical Girls. It's what the Clear Seeds are for. If she runs away now, a peaceful life is the last thing she'll have, simply by being a Magical Girl.
-[ ] Right now? We all need to deal with this.
-[ ] Explain how her actions hurt Niko. Hijiri's not an experiment, she was played.
-[ ] Reassure her you can all solve this if you stay and talk.
-[ ] Promise to help if she tries to make things better.
[] Tell Hijiri that we went after her because she helped attack them and steal things, and then attacked us. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Yuuri manipulated her. We want to stop her from messing with others.
[] Reassure Hijiri that no-one thinks less of her for being created by a wish, certainly not us, since we were created by a wish.
[ ] Clarify that Hijiri personally wasn't a target of the hunt. Someone hurt one of Kazumi's friends after breaking in, so naturally our teams went looking for whoever the culprit was.
-[ ] None of this was necessary. Niko is devastated, and even if Hijiri thinks that little of what is esentially mentally herself, none of the Pleiades would stand for Niko "disposing of" a sentient "experiment."
[ ] Personally, your goal is to make a better life for all magical girls everywhere. But if she wants a "peaceful life"... she needs to make amends with the people she hurt.
-[ ] Let the Pleiades take the lead when they arrive.
[ ] Telepathically bring up Sayaka's parents to Sayaka. You're going to be searching for a while yet, which means she needs an explanation for how/why she vanished out of bed.
-[ ] Unless she thinks she can get a clone back into bed using her copied MOF, anyway.
In the wake of this, where we have an example of another wish-created magical girl hopefully at least semi-friendly, will be the perfect time. Not right when we need people to focus on hunting down an enemy.
I do think we should qualify slightly - something like "it's overwhelmingly likely I was generated through a wish", basically.
It plays better with Sayaka and other allies we haven't discussed it yet, since later on we can present it as the logical conclusion of "amnesia/no history/weird inexplicable knowledge/unusual soul" that it is, as opposed to an actual secret we were keeping.
Don't want to step on toes but if they don't decide to let her go and search for the other girl themselves, I want to push for her being freed.
[ ] Clarify that Hijiri personally wasn't a target of the hunt. Someone hurt one of Kazumi's friends after breaking in, so naturally our teams went looking for whoever the culprit was. -[ ] None of this was necessary. Niko is devastated, and even if Hijiri thinks that little of what is esentially mentally herself, none of the Pleiades would stand for Niko "disposing of" a sentient "experiment." Not a fan of talking about her as an experiment
[ ] Personally, your goal is to make a better life for all magical girls everywhere. But if she wants a "peaceful life"... she needs ought to make amends to the people she hurt.
-[ ] Let the Pleiades take the lead when they arrive.
In the wake of this, where we have an example of another wish-created magical girl hopefully at least semi-friendly, will be the perfect time. Not right when we need people to focus on hunting down an enemy.
We don't broadcast it over telepathy. The group here needs to focus on dealing with Hijiri. And the fact that wish constructs can be, well, like us is entirely relevant to that.
[ ] Unfortunately, it seems like Yuuri used Hijiri as a pawn
-[ ] She manipulated Hijiri into attacking a group Yuuri knew was too powerful for one magical girl to even flee from
-[ ] She manipulated Hijiri into thinking she was a science experiment
-[ ] And she manipulated Hijiri into thinking life as a magical girl would be in any sense of the word peaceful.
-[ ] The only questions is what she was expecting to get out of it, and what she did.
[ ] Telepathy the new information to the Pleiades
-[ ] Defer to Kazumi, but we'd prefer if we could keep some girls in the search pattern. Yuuri might still be in the city.
[ ] This is Kazumi's territory, and Niko's mistake. Before we can really let Hijiri go, she's going to have to talk to both of them.
-[ ] But we appreciate the honesty. If she's serious about just wanting to squirrel away and live in peace, we can clear a grief seed for her so long as she can get one.
She ended up being more compliant than I expected. Well done, guys.
Still, this is Kazumi's territory. She has a say in whatever happens here, and with Hijiri's behavior directly effecting her team, she's the only one with the authority to release Hijiri from detainment. Fortunately, it's Kazumi, so I doubt that'll be hard to get.
[] Inform the Pleiades that Yuuri was also involved, using Hijiri as a puppet, and suggest resuming the search. Hopefully this will allow us to conduct the interview with just the present crew.
[] Tell Hijiri that we went after her because she helped attack them and steal things, and then attacked us. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Yuuri manipulated her. We want to stop her from messing with others.
[] Reassure Hijiri that no-one thinks less of her for being created by a wish, certainly not us, since we were very likely created by a wish.
[] Telepathically bring up Sayaka's parents to Sayaka. You're going to be searching for a while yet, which means she needs an explanation for how/why she vanished out of bed.
-[] Unless she thinks she can get a clone back into bed using her copied MOF, anyway.
