Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I didn't really answer this.
Doing so would require Dreamwalking 3 & Illusion 2 for a stable result. Illusion 3 would make it stable enough to not need constant maintenance.
Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
Doing so would require Dreamwalking 3 & Illusion 2 for a stable result. Illusion 3 would make it stable enough to not need constant maintenance.
- Location
- Laniakea
Cannot tell whether this was meant to have a "not" before the "like", or whether that was omitted on purpose.
If Amu gets drunk off an Integrity failure mid-class, it might be embarrassing but the ironic thing is that it wouldn't actually be the first time such a thing has happened in school given her previous involuntary Chara-Changes with Ran, Miki and Su.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It was omitted on purpose.
Ahaha...
It happened on the first day. In fact it happened quite a lot in the first week. Poor Amu and her attempted personality projection; how her 'cool and spicy' persona survived that I'll... never know, but certainly suspect. Also a demo of 'telepathy', though admittedly chara-to-amu.
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- Location
- San Diego, CA
Has Amu tried having Ran or Su sync with Miki to see if it is possible? If the chara change is successful (and if it temporarily adds a dot of overgrowth to Miki), would she still be a teenage sloth? Could Miki learn how to get an additional dot of overgrowth by observing those changes to her?
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
She has not tried it, no. Anything I could say about that would be a spoiler. From my point of view the outcome is blatantly obvious, but I don't expect anyone who hasn't done some study to agree.
- Location
- Laniakea
......That is to say, anyone who doesn't equivocate Charas with AI model LoRAs.
By Persona logic, assuming that Charas are basically mutant Shadows/Personas (knowing that they are birthed from the same base as Shadows and that Amu effectively uses hers as Personas), merging 2 Charas should make a bigger, more powerful one. Since that's what happens when you fuse Personas (or when boss Shadows fuse themselves).
But that's by Persona logic.
I am not wholly certain that chaining LoRAs on an AI necessarily results in a bigger, better AI when it comes to machine learning.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
You also shouldn't take the link as meaning that's precisely how I think about it. The LoRA / Chara analogy is just that, but it's a wide field, and ... we're not anywhere close to AGI. To the degree Miki is artificial at all, she's definitely human-level.
Spend enough workdays reading about AI, you end up with certain ideas.
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- Location
- Laniakea
If it works, I'm guessing it might immediately trigger the Level 4 event.
By Shugo Chara logic, there's no actual reason Miki couldn't do it. Chara fusion in-series has been seen to follow similar logic to Persona/Shadow fusion - we know for a fact that multiple X-Eggs or X-Charas can fuse to make one giant bigger, stronger X-Chara just like Shadows can. Similarly, just like how fusing 4 Personas can get you an even bigger and better Persona than just fusing 2, fusing with 4 Charas at once gave us a bigger, better Amu than when she fuses with 1.
Fusing with foreign Charas is possible, we know that from Amu's Amulet Angel and Utau's Dark Jewel. Being forced to fuse with a foreign Chara, when neither party really wants to do it is also entirely possible, as seen with Ikuto and Death Rebel.
What complicates it is that we don't really know how Overgrowth from this quest would tie into it, my personal guess about Charas carrying at least one dot of Overgrowth with them is still only a guess. The only thing that can likely be said is that it will probably cost WP to attempt.
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I don't think it did. In the very next chapter, a bunch of people come up to her in class, talking about how they see her differently now.
I think you see your analogies and logical leaps as much more natural than they really are. If you weren't the person deciding how this stuff works, there'd be no reason for machine learning comparisons to do any better than, say, trying to overapply the hydraulic analogy to electrical engineering.
With the most recent Interlude, here's hoping we get to see someone in JPs try to explain to Midori that her younger daughter's technically-not-a-shadow walking around IRL with a magic sword she had forged in the Cognitive Universe isn't supposed to be treated like a normal thing. 
I'm pretty sure the Persona characters will also have opinions, but more along the lines of "does this mean we didn't need to have epic boss fights first" and the inevitable "what are they teaching kids inhigh elementary school these days".
Inb4 Shadow Nanako
Edit: Akkun calls upon Acchan to cast Marin Karin on some shadow and the entire investigation team just stares.
I'm pretty sure the Persona characters will also have opinions, but more along the lines of "does this mean we didn't need to have epic boss fights first" and the inevitable "what are they teaching kids in
Edit: Akkun calls upon Acchan to cast Marin Karin on some shadow and the entire investigation team just stares.
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- Location
- Laniakea
Whoever gives that explanation, it isn't going to be Hotsuin, that man has a warped view of what normal is, and not all of it came from working in an organization that regularly summons and kills demons.
Their boss does it more and better.
Mitsuru's Shadow Operatives, on the other hand, would be very unimpressed.
Their boss does it more and better.
Interlude: Saaya
Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
Gintsugi Dreams - Saaya
Contination of the Sidestory chapter: Crizzling Dreams
-once green eyes open beneath the Diet building.
This girl isn't met by family, however.
Saaya isn't surprised.
"-amabuki, are you aware?"
"-rade Five mental abrasion, Doctor Akamine. It was a reflexive movement, nothing m-."
"-mori-san recovered fully. I still have h-."
Saaya wakes slowly, scattered pieces of cognition leisurely, barely, surfacing from the dark.
The Locket pulses in time with her heart as amber eyes take in the ceiling, not in any rush to fully awaken. It's impossible not to notice it supporting her, bridging gaps in her psyche with spiderwebs of fine chain links. Its presence means little to her.
A quiet alert has been sounding through the medical ward, but it takes the doctor calling her name(?) to pull her gaze from the internal to external.
"Miss Yamabuki, are you… present?"
An interesting question. Yamabuki. Family name. The connection that should be there, isn't. Awareness of it remains to highlight the absence. An expectation of said connection? Fragments that note the absences remain. The ones which should have been screaming, don't. This absence is also noted.
"Yamabuki-chan, can you hear me?"
But is that a reason to respond? What happens if she does?
The doctor frowns, leaning in, worry clear on his face. Salt and pepper hair. Worry lines. Older than her parents, but not by much.
Thoughts shift through molasses, decisions coming… not slowly, but lackadaisical as they meander around patches of inattention. Does it matter if she doesn't reply? Well, what does it matter if she does? The questions don't come consciously, the answers don't come at all.
It takes her long minutes to determine that questions are a request for an answer, and decide that she should give them. It's less a decision than an absence of provided alternatives. The Locket does its job, converting errors and annotations of absence into extrapolated fragments, which settle into place to let her think.
"That isn't possible. Someone alert security, that can't be-"
It almost immediately runs out of material to build from, confined to a room as it is, but by that point Saaya can talk. It reverts to a lesser mode, stitching pieces together instead of wholesale reconstruction. It can be patient when it must.
"I can hear you. Call me Saaya. Not…" Her parents aren't here. Saaya wonders if that would have hurt, before the last… week? Month? Life? She makes the decision anyway, pushing the burned out gulf away for now. She honestly doesn't care that they aren't, but the family name feels off.
Amu had called her Saaya, when she was dying. When her rival was saving her life. It fits better, to the scattered pieces of self that consider a name worth stressing over.
"Her eyes are harvest too, what in god's name-"
He shoots whoever is whispering a glare, before turning back to her. "Miss Saaya, then. You've been through a rather extreme experience, and we are here to help you recover from it."
She supposes that is fine. One hand rests on the locket that is holding her together.
Saaya doesn't feel like reconstructing that 'self', mask, after the freedom of letting go.
So she leans on the artificial structure as they talk at her. She's alive, and that is more than she could have asked for. Not that she had.
⁂
Her memories of before she passed out—died—are hazy, fractured, but she can remember the empty space behind reality.
Demons are real. Huh. Not just the things that Hinamori, and presumably the other 'Guardians', dealt with, but things from Outside. Like in the novels she'd read. She'd tumbled through the hole in reality, and some of her came screaming back from burning on the far side.
That worries her less than she feels it should. As does what she hears of the school.
Saaya knows, by now, that something is deeply wrong with her. Amu fixed some things, healed her body, and it's enough that she's willing to consider forgiving her.
But the places she turned destruction on, those haven't come back. Chain link stitching didn't restore everything.
Or maybe that willingness to forgive is due to the gaping emptiness where stripes of her emotions used to reside. She can tell she would have reacted far worse to the Locket's presence in her mind, two weeks ago.
An idle thought erases her discomfort with the chain links.
⁂
"I am sorry, Miss Saaya, but your parents are held up. I'm sure they'll be here as soon as they can be."
The doctor, Dr. Akamine, seems disappointed on her behalf. They must know by now that her father works in the Diet building overhead. There isn't any need for him to try and cover for them, so she speaks up.
"They won't be. This is probably the last straw on them pretending to care." The doctor goes to speak, so she cuts him off. People's misunderstandings are annoying now that she's free from caring herself. "It doesn't matter. Caring about that was one of the first things I burned. Made them a lot easier to deal with."
He frowns, not commenting, before moving on to what exactly she did to herself. Saaya, barely listening, feels a sudden lurch of jealousy for literally-everybody-else's halfway decent parents. A moment of instinctual Erasure removes the intruding wrongness, the chain-threads burning, and it doesn't come back again.
Neither he nor Saaya call her month long spiral a suicide attempt, but they dance around the term. Him out of worry, her out of some bitter amusement.
Her rival once again stopped her from succeeding. She supposes she'll add that to the list of things to forgive Amu-chan for.
⁂
Makoto Sako is the highest ranking military officer in JPs. It's her job to order their agents into battle with demons, and she has to admit, this kind of mental damage isn't new to her. She isn't a sorcerer herself, nor does JPs have many on staff, because with no known exceptions all sorcerers end up destroying their minds. An accident here, a stressful combat encounter there, and inevitably Japan's care homes for dementia patients have more than their fair share of retired sorcerers.
Hotsuin is no exception. There's a reason JPs is led by a sixteen-year-old instead of either of his parents, and Makoto feels fear each time he takes the field, which isn't often.
Yes, his presence trivialises most opponents.
No, she doesn't protest when he spends his time elsewhere. Nor does she push her own sorcerer subordinates towards combat outside of absolute need. There's a reason they have the Silencer. Demon summoning is often the safer option, and even that… sometimes, the Silencer is the only way to break a link that is draining someone of Macca. Consuming their soul, in simpler terms.
What was new, and troubling, was a teenager showing the same damage. Even worse, by the girl's own admission it was self-inflicted. The way she said it reminded her of some agents, the older ones. The ones that tried to use the cost of summoning beyond their capacity as a form of therapy.
Level five though? That wasn't something the Silencer could fix. Not something anything could fix, even the Director.
Level five was an immediate death sentence.
Hotsuin's unofficial assistant shakes her head and looks up from the file to where said girl sits in a wheelchair beyond the observation glass, as Dr Akamine instructs her. She looks exhausted, still, but coherent now. Pale and bags under her eyes. Makoto makes a note to check she is eating properly.
"Okay, Saaya. Aim for the target we've got set up there, and use your ability. You don't need to push, but it will help us a lot to know what your power does."
Makoto Sako has seen many esoteric abilities since joining JPs, ranging from the childrens' telekinesis to the Director's summons to her own angelic looking Power.
None were quite like the blue light- Cherenkov radiation? No, too blue for that- that rips free from the child's hand with a mutter that the mics just about manage to pick up, her lips quirking up. "Fuck, off."
The surge of energy destroys, obliterates. Sako barely stops herself pressing down on the phone key, her JP's 'phone' drawn and snapped open before she consciously processes reaching for it.
She nearly misses the details, too busy drawing the summoning terminal in an instinctive reaction, but under the flying shards of wood her keen eyes can see something otherwise easily missed in the display of unsettling power.
Where it hit? The energy erased. The other parts of the wooden block went flying, but over half the mass is just gone. Not disintegrated, not torn apart. It disappeared, the space it occupied formatted to nothing. As are chunks of the reinforced walls, sliced through as easily as the wood. Deleted just as easily as her Power would crush a Pixie.
Makoto would have to call it luck that the doctor wasn't hit, considering the fact that the door behind him is missing a chunk.
Abrasion level five and she can do this a single week later. These children worry her, even more than just the bean bag did. And the jokes about that thing weren't doing a good job of hiding the general sense of unease at its existence.
A low hiss distracts both her and the Doctor as Saaya peels her sleeves back curiously, fingers and arms bleeding where spirals of flesh have been erased.
What on earth?!
⁂
A short while later Makoto meets Saaya in person for the first time. Without the glass and distance the fact that the young girl is barely a teenager stands out more. Painfully short red hair compared to her school photo, pale features and an encompassing sense of exhaustion.
Sako makes a mental note to find some actual clothes for the girl to replace the hospital gown. And let her out of the room, perhaps. She looks like she can handle a few minutes.
"Hello, Miss Saaya. I'm Makoto Sako, an officer here in JPs." Saaya blinks, taking in the uniform, before nodding.
"We are something of a government agency," Sako continues. "-though you won't find any record of us out in the world. We deal with, well, demons."
The navy haired woman made the call on her own authority to fully read Saaya into things. The girl's father lacked the clearance, but Mr Yamabuki wasn't here. Hadn't been here, in the week Saaya had laid unconscious. That man…
Using a Diarahan to heal the damage from her ability meant showing her demon summoning anyway.
Neither the appearance of the Power, somewhat judgemental of the child, nor explaining JPs in broad terms gets much of a reaction from the young girl beyond a raised eyebrow.
Some basic questions, easily answered, but less curiosity than she expected.
Basic queries about demons, where they come from, but altogether Saaya came across as very… casual about the whole thing. Uninvolved. You'd swear the girl was a tourist the way she listened about the tragedy at Seiyo.
Maybe she'd been wrong to expect intense curiosity? Mental abrasion level five, and the child was holding a conversation like it was mildly interesting, rather than wasting away like you'd expect from someone on level two.
"So… what happens now?"
"What happens now?" Makoto blinks and repeats the question, wondering what the girl could mean.
"Well, I'm obviously not back to normal, even with what Hinamori- Amu-chan did. And my parents aren't here. So it seems I'm going to be staying for a bit, unless I've missed my mark? JPs are the experts on magic, you said?"
Saaya smiles slightly, a rueful look that fails to ease the young woman's stab of unease. Children shouldn't accept that their parents aren't coming for them as a matter of course. Though her file did mention…
"Miss Saaya, when you said to Dr Akamine about having 'burned' out something to do with your parents, what did you mean?" She's pretty sure she knows.
"I was panicking, I think. A lot of that is hazy, I've only got memories of the memories." Saaya shrugs carelessly, gesturing at her buzz-cut head, mild annoyance crossing her face as her fingers brush the shortened hair. Makoto stifled her frown at the sheer… apathy in her tone, resisting the urge to pull the girl into a hug.
"People, Hinamori and some of my other classmates, were trying to affect me mentally. So I set everything they could touch on fire. Attacked it to remove the… vector? Attack surface?" She shrugs. "That's my power, I think. I can't do anything she could, making things, flying, energy beams… But once I started it just… made sense? Deleting things that bothered me. Things that I'd never been able to fix, so why keep bothering with them? It was so freeing, to just let it all go and not care anymore. Just point, bang, gone."
Saaya says it so casually, a smile on her lips, with that same assuredness that all those summoners had. It's not the same, quite. Associations, not memories. But still, unsettling to hear from a thirteen year old.
She says it so damn casually that Sako almost misses the blunt implication in the amber eyed girl's words, that deleting people could have been her next step.
"Ri… right. For now, with what you can do, we plan on teaching you to control it. And some of the exercises we use to keep mental types out of our heads. They should work well for you. I'm sure Dr Akamine has said, but-"
"Right, right. Don't erase any other parts of myself. Or others. I wasn't planning on it. I can feel how… fragmented I am, Makoto-san. Amu's Locket is tacky and pushy, but I wouldn't want to damage it." She smiles slightly, toying with the Locket as was becoming her habit. It's good to see that she has habits like that, rather than being corpse-still like the more damaged summoners.
"So. You'll teach me how to control this… everything. Then what?"
Then what indeed, Makoto wonders to herself a while later, after Saaya has left for—she checks the schedule—an examination.
It was a thought that stuck with her the rest of the day.
'What do I do now?'
It was a question a younger Makoto had once asked when recovering from her injury, a certain and promised future ripped away from her.
⁂
"Should we really be teaching her how to use this?" Sako said. "My Power already explained. It's an anti-reality effect. It's highly probable it was a key part in how the rift in Seiyo was created. That, the pink haired one, and whatever else Amakawa is up to."
"What's the alternative? Let her run around with a Kagutsuchi damaging ability and fifth tier mental abrasion? Likely worsening it? Her psychic architecture is in shambles and held together by an OoP. We are already stretching procedure just by keeping her here, rather than contacting someone whose job is psionics. Yamabuki-"
"Saaya. She wants to be called Saaya."
"...? Saaya then, is only under our purview because of the demon incursion. And our expertise in mental damage, but realistically psionics isn't in our purview. Manticore will have a fit when they find out."
"Manticore has no experience at all with children."
"Be that as it may-" Neither did they, Fumi was saying, and Manticore at least kept an eye on some. Seiyo was a known phenomenon. "Is keeping her the best choice we can give Saaya?"
"I'm not saying we shouldn't ask the experts, but could we… I don't know, help her stop hurting herself?"
"You've always been soft, Sako. If you are that worried, she's yours to take care of. Yours, specifically. The Director likes his 'Hero Units', but recruiting kids into JPs is beyond even him."
"..."
"What?"
"I might have to get that in writing."
⁂
A few days later sees Saaya in another 'practice room'. Physically, they've confirmed there's nothing wrong with her, something she privately resolves to thank Amu for.
Mentally however, things are not going so well.
A breath in and the not-ruby-reactor blooms. Power. Energy flooding the empty space between thoughts.
Destruction rising, bury your face in white thread, the smell of bleach, ozone, feel erasure-
A scattershot pull, different fragments of self shifting, networking through the Locket to comprehend and grapple with the-
It rips free, flaying the top layer of her palm and spiralling a blade of absence up her wrist.
Air fractures around the target as the world dies at her clumsy command.
And an inch deep gouge of stone cracks as the material is erased, her barely there control over the manifestation slipping into a spiderweb of laughing grooves.
"Not the best…"
She shakes her bleeding hand out, examining the target. "Miss Saaya? Are you alright?" The voice is over the intercom, after the last test.
"I was able to control it, before. It did what I told it to do, mostly. I don't know why it isn't working now." She takes a deep breath, trying to concentrate on one of the mental exercises the Doctor had been teaching her.
Cat's Cradle, Soldiers Bed, Candle. Twisting the connections of the Locket to draw the Saaya-pieces closer together, into different alignments. It… helps, even if it feels odd.
"The strain you were under isn't fully healed. That will affect your control, especially with an ability like this."
He's said it before, and she understands, but it still pissed her off.
Diamond, Cat's Eye.
"Can you summon that fairy again? Pixie?"
"The fair- You are injured again? Of course, we'll call it there for today." The intercom stays on, a slight buzzing. "Ah? Sir, what are- Sako-san said? Of course sir."
Saaya blinks, looking towards the speaker. Well, that sounds like something she could be interested in.
The Locket would be annoyed, if such a thing could be.
It sets about repairing the damage.
Again.
⁂
It isn't Dr Akamine that meets her outside the testing chamber, but a much younger man.
Not out of his teens, silver hair, matching eyes, noble features in a way that would have made her father offer the good drinks. He was dressed like the other JP members but fancier. And that phone… that same as Makoto and Dr Akamine used to summon. But nicer?
In other words, very much the same sort of person she'd always thought of Tadase as, before.
Parts of her mind shift, trying to reach one another, pattern matching that would have been entirely subconscious if she wasn't painfully aware of her own mind and its 'error messages' now.
A crush. Saaya considers for a moment, tugging the Lockets curling threads away so she can actually consider for herself, rather than be told what she should think.
That is likely how she'd have reacted before.
That… hadn't ever really gone anywhere positive with Tadase. And did she really want to be that kind of star struck school girl again? She can accept that he's cute, but rationally speaking?
He snaps the phone shut and turns to her properly as she makes the decision, moment of dissonance cleared with a sharp mental edge.
No. No she did not.
"Saaya-san. I've been meaning to talk with you and Makoto-san asked me to as well. But first."
A purple demon flickers into existence to gesture at her with a silver cup, "Diarahan", before fading away.
Healing magic is becoming familiar to the young girl at this point, much to the annoyance of Dr Akamine's pixie.
"Hotsuin-sama, thank you for your organisation's hospitality and care." Manners are not especially important to her anymore, but no one here has been anything but nice to her.
Being a brat in return didn't make sense. That isn't the sort of person she wants to be. If manners were also hammered into Saaya by her parents… that's a part of the old her she can accept.
"It is JP's duty to deal with such things. Firstly however, I must apologise to you." The noble looking boy- man? Director, Saaya decides on. He has the sense of someone older than his apparent age, but not quite an adult like the teachers. "The actions taken by Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto went unnoticed by me, her cousin, and so I apologise for the harm she inflicted on you."
Lulu de Morcerf. The girl who had twisted her into Amu's image. Who had indirectly shown her how to reach for the Destruction, the endless blue beyond the ruby. How to kill herself piecemeal until-
Cat's Eye, Circles and Triangles.
Mental fingers tug the threads, chainlinks so fine they feel like silk. The locket's chains are less visible these days, and less needed, too.
Deep breath. Taper down the anger- hate, let the flickering fade from clenched fists. Dim the amber glow she can see in her eyes, reflected in the Directors.
Flower, Ghost Dance.
Saaya refocuses, sensing more than seeing the judgemental glance at her hands, where Destruction had rippled, and ripped, with her anger.
That irritated him? After the apology? What did he-
A moment's consideration, modelling his view, and she realises it's not… irritation at the emotion, but the lack of control. A lean of perspective and she understands. Lulu isn't here, so the power was pointless. Wasteful? She can agree with that sort of opinion. That mindset. Empathise with it, even. So…
Candle Thief. Strings jump, an estimation of his mentality, nudged by the Lockets tension.
Oh. That… works nicely. Thank you, Director.
"Sorry. I'm still figuring it out. And I… accept your apology. You messed up, but the school didn't do any better, and they were closer. You're… making sure she can't do it again? Isn't able to make anyone else..."
He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't question the delay in her reply. "I am. As is her grandmother. As is Lulu, I believe. Moving on from that, Makoto-san asked me to talk with you. She was unclear on why, but she is insistent."
Hotsuin left it there, looking at her expectantly. Saaya takes the distraction, ruby-hate dimming.
"I'm not sure either? I'm just… working on controlling my ability. Not like I can do much else. It isn't going very well though." Saaya shrugs, wiping the new blood from her palms onto her jeans where the stains won't show.
"And you are willing to leave it at that?" The Director frowns, more than his resting face does. "You have a powerful ability, but it will be wasted if you don't have the resolve to control it." The phone, still held in his hand, rings. His attention moves to it, seeming to dismiss her as he answers the call.
Saaya frowns, taking in his dismissal, similar yet different to her parents. They dismissed, but this felt… She'd been interesting, but now she's failed on some internal evaluation of his?
Well then. Motivation sparks to life, born of irritation and spite, and it fills a void that had been growing. Warms something that had been chilling, beneath her awareness yet dragging it down.
The Candle Thief is tweaked, a nudge of momentum to make it dynamic, before it's knotted into place for now, the flame flickering and slowly dancing.
She starts from the top, nodding goodbye to Hotsuin as he heads off to whoever was calling him. Rude, but understandable.
Cradle. Soldier's Bed. Candles.
Pieces of mind, directed by the Locket's silk-chain and her own will, shift around that ruby-blue candle light and fan its flame.
⁂
Makoto Sako sighs, straightening her suit and brushing herself down. She isn't fond of being in the Diet building proper at the best of times, and this time she's both on her own and approaching someone she's already fairly sure she isn't going to enjoy talking to.
Not that there are many in the 'upper floors' that she does enjoy conversing with to start with.
The majority of the government above and around Japan are unaware of the work JP's did, most viewing them as an obscured branch of the CIRO agencies. A few know both too much and too little, and so assume they're connected to one of the many cults that make Japan their playground, some of which have more political connections than Sako is entirely comfortable with. Sako cannot blame them for the misunderstanding. They'd be allies if they understood.
Those that are informed mostly treat them like the men in black, the occult boogiemen in the night. This is less inaccurate, and occasionally useful.
Walking into the office, Sako raises an eyebrow at just how quickly the man's secretary makes distance from the man she's here to visit.
"Ah, yes, Ms Sako, from the… lower floors sir. She's on your planner for… five minutes from now." The secretary's defensive tone is hard to miss. Sako notices she's straightening her blouse.
"I'm from JPs, to clarify, Mr Yamabuki."
The man in question's face swiftly changes from annoyed to a careful blank expression at that.
"Please give us some privacy then, Lauren." The assistant nods carefully, picking up a folder from the man's desk and making her way out.
"So. The 'spooks' are up here today. This has something to do with Saaya?" Sako files away the western slang for later consideration. His file had mentioned something about a failed transfer to an embassy, hadn't it?
"Yes, your daughter."
"Or whatever she is now. You know, I assume? Whatever happened to her, that's why you're here?" He straightens up in the chair, moving a page aside to face her properly and gestures to a chair.
"Whatever happened? The incident at the school?" Sako sits. The question takes her slightly off guard.
"No. Though I suppose that could have been her?" Mr Yamabuki raises an eyebrow at her, before sighing. "Or she's just like those demon things from the news."
"What do you mean? Saaya is nothing like those-"
He cuts her off, slumping. "I've been told I'm an empath. I'm sure it's in my record. Whatever 'Saaya' is now, she's not my daughter any more."
It had been in his file. It's why he's been informed, even though he doesn't count as 'useful'. She hadn't expected him to be quite so blunt about it though.
"About… three months ago? There was an explosion upstairs. She'd seemed a bit off that day, but kids, you know? Always upset over something. Saaya was a good girl though, she didn't normally try to make it my problem, unlike her mother."
Sako holds her tongue on that blase comment, the grip on her clipboard tightening.
"Rushed up, pieces of the oak door all over the place. Barely half of it left. And Saaya just sitting there. Nothing but… have you ever seen a wildfire? That was the best thing I could compare it to, the feel around her. A blue wildfire. Then, anyway. Those demons on the news, they fit better."
"Sorry, you said she accessed Destruction months ago? We've been assuming she only recently touched it."
"If that's what you call it. I can't get a read from you spooks, you've all got that meditation technique or whatever it is. She started always feeling like that. Destruction, fire. Wrong fundamentally. That wasn't my daughter."
Sako makes a note of the phrasing, 'wrong', but doesn't interrupt as he continues
"And she proved that with how she started acting from then on. Not listening to us. Falling out with her friends. She stopped going out with them at least, so maybe they could sense the same thing. Stopped being good and started causing problems for us."
Sako takes a moment, frowning to herself as she considers that new information. Saaya had been like that, for months. The girl had said she'd removed her attachment to her parents but… Sako had honestly expected that to at least in part be the actions of a child overreacting.
But no. This man had apparently been able to sense the damage she was doing to herself, and just… done nothing?
"Mr Yamabuki, if you could sense what she was going through, why didn't you say anything? If you know enough to call us 'spooks', and recognise that we have the ability to block your empathic abilities, surely you could have contacted us?"
And surely, she thinks to herself, if you know all that, you could have told us all this two weeks ago rather than ignoring the fact that your daughter has been comatose beneath the very building you work in.
"And do what? Give you lot a reason to look closer at me, because she decided to start causing problems?" He shakes his head, gesturing to where she is sitting. "Not that it did any good."
Sako wonders if JPs has any of the influence that half the politicians seem to think they do, and if Hotsuin can use it to destroy one. That thought gets tucked away, a bit of vindictiveness in Saaya's name she would have to think about.
"Neither did it do her any good, Mr Yamabuki," she reprimands. Sako opens her file, pulling out the earmarked pages.
He accepts them, frowning. "What are these?"
"Medical guardianship forms. Saaya-chan still needs a great deal of help after her experiences, and JP's, we, are the only ones actually able to help with that." The fact that the papers lacked a specific end term, other than as determined by JPs…
Well. If he notices, she has her arguments ready.
Sako watches as he flicks through them, making it to the third page before raised voices become audible through the door.
"-sten to you, of all people. I know my husband is in there-"
"Mrs. Yamabuki, he is in a meeting-"
"A meeting? Like how he was in a 'meeting' when you came by our house?"
Sako hadn't planned for Saaya's mother turning up, but that didn't mean she couldn't put it to use for the girl's benefit. The Director was a great teacher in using an opportunity.
So she keeps quiet as the argument gets closer to the door of the office, smiling at the guest as it slams open.
One look at Mrs. Yamabuki's face is enough to be sure this is such an opportunity.
⁂
Motivation, it turns out, is nothing without an understanding of what you are trying to do.
So by the end of the next session practice, Saaya has a pixie on her head. This is a fact she's decided to be idly amused by.
Hadn't Amu- the cheater -had something like this? The memory is grainy, blood stained and 'folded' twice over by the damage, but Saaya has seen enough in JPs that it's pointless to reject the memory of Amu calling up the tiny maid creature to heal her.
She is missing the pieces of herself that would have put any real heat into hating the idea of 'Charas', as the Doctor has told her the Guardians' familiars are called.
Saaya knows that. Can feel the gap, trace the outline. Could recreate it, not the same but close enough from the outside. The Locket has thankfully given up on jumping to do so at the consideration, by now.
But… Why would she bother recreating hate, when it would only cause her issues?
That would be a troublesome sort of person to be, even if it didn't lead to death.
An idle shift in pattern erases the outline suggested.
This pixie, however, is not nearly as gentle as Amu's.
"You can't just keep destroying yourself because you don't wanna touch the spell! It's more than just physical, you know. I can heal the damage, and will, but you!" This was the third or forth cycle of the tiny creature's rant.
"Pixie, I'm sure Miss Saaya-" Dr Akamine tried to calm his summon down, but..
"And you! Letting her keep blasting herself like this! A great big hypocrita-whattcha-call-it oath that turned out to be! Hmph! You know what I said the last time, not desummoning! You clearly can't be trusted with the kid."
The demon, Pixie, was a mainstay summon of Dr Akamine, having somewhat bonded over a shared interest in healing.
That same shared interest, as far as Saaya could tell, meant the little creature objected greatly to her growing list of injuries caused by invoking the Destruction 'spell'.
"I suppose I did agree. You will have to stay within the facility, of course."
Saaya speaks before the indignant Pixie can respond, "Where else would I go, Doctor?"
He gives her that look of worry, before sighing and gesturing for her to go.
⁂
A few minutes later Pixie and the young girl are in Saaya's… room? The demon was fairly sure that kids don't usually have rooms here, but this looks lived in. Sparsely! There's little- whatchamacallit- emotional investment? But it is clearly the girl's space. Which is something!
You can't befriend a rock, after all.
Darting around curiously, there's not really anything other than 'Saaya's room' it could be classed as, but there aren't many personal effects. From what Pixie knew, It wasn't like Saaya came here with many and hadn't wanted to go and retrieve any.
A few sets of clothes, medication that she isn't meant to take on her own unless Sako was busy— She hasn't been yet —and some books that look well read. And a JP's standard phone on the desk, though the demon can tell it lacks the summoning program with a glance.
Odd though. These 'JPs' humans are usually very possessive about their 'branding'.
Enough deep thoughts!
"So, so so. What do you wanna do, Saaya? Oh, do you want to play games!?"
Kids like games, right? It's been longer than Pixie would prefer since she last got to actually spend time with any. Other than healing them. Which is very different! And makes her feel very grownup, except she's not! Nor is she ready for that.
Being a grownup High Pixie is, she presumes, mostly boring. You gotta be all resp-on-sible. She knows the word, she just doesn't wanna think it.
Saaya raises an eyebrow, sitting down on the bed. "If you want to. I thought you were going to explain what I was doing wrong though."
The Pixie squinted in response. Did she? Games were something she thought all kids liked, but Saaya isn't the most kid-like kid she's met, even counting only the ones in JPs.
"Weeeell. I was going to ask why you were keeping your spell so far away when you cast it. It's gotta be harder to control without touching it, isn't it?"
Frowning, Saaya touches the side of her head, before dropping her hand. There! What was that, sadness? Why sadness?
"How else would I control it? I summon it up and then sort of…" She trails off, toying with the Locket. "I angle the 'me' to aim it. But there isn't enough me to stop it 'splashing' out at the moment."
Pixie takes a moment to stare at the young girl, before flying up and bopping her on the head.
"Saaya-Idiot! That would mean if you did have more, it would just damage you more that way!"
Rubbing her forehead, Saaya tilts her head slightly. "How else would I aim it though? It just lashes out."
"Because you aren't controlling it, you're just stopping the spell from hitting other stuff by being in the way! You're already doing it more like me than the other people here, so you should just go the whole way!"
Pixie lands on one of the books, looking up at the girl and trying to figure out how to make her understand. Demons never had this problem! "I don't know Dia, I am Dia. It's part of me, like all my other spells. I don't have to control where it goes, because it's me and I know where I want it to go."
Saaya stares at her, clearly taking in the wisdom she is sharing. As she should!
"I.. think I get it?" A twitch of her hand, and blue flickers in the air, the scent of ozone making the Pixies nose twitch dramatically as Saaya frowns down at the sudden papercuts littering her hand. "I'll try that tomorrow. Sako-san asked me not to practice in here."
What a good kid! Not-kid. Demon-kid? Saaya was weird.
"Sure!" Pixie nod nods, the coil of her hair shifting.
There it is again! But first!
"Saaya-chan, I'm going to heal you, okay? Just think about your hands being okay." She starts to cast before being interrupted by a thoughtful looking Saaya.
"Wait a second, Pixie. You said you don't control how I heal, right?"
"Yeah? I don't know human bio-whatsit."
Saaya frowns, thinking deeply. It's good to see, but also not very interesting. But Pixie waits, knowing that it's important to let even weird demon-kids think things out.
"So it just heals me to how I think I should be? Or how I feel is right?"
"Kinda? It turns you back into what you should be. It's harder to use on humans because you all grow, so it wastes mana fighting ageing and stuff."
"Ageing? …Is that why- Never mind, I have something I want to try. Give me another minute first?" Saaya rummages through the bedside table, pulling out another phone—scratched and damaged—and checking something on it.
The demon nods curiously. She isn't sure what the little destruction child is going to do, but so far she's been weirdly interesting!
And then blinks, wings fluttering slowly as she tilts her head.
Demons don't see the world quite like humans. That is something Pixie knows, fundamentally. Humans age, they change, they break. They grow. Demons don't normally break, they just… are or aren't. Demons that try to grow usually break. Pixies that try to be responsible get responsibilities. Pixie is happy not to!
But… watching Saaya wind the artefact's chain around a finger, her eyes chasing some invisible thread?
The closest thing Pixie can think of is a demon learning a new spell. The alteration of self that changes both who they are and what they are capable of.
It's visible to the perception-awareness of demonkind, the twisting- flensing -of self that rewrites self-concept to better suit purpose ripples across Saaya as she nods to herself before looking back at Pixie.
Humans aren't meant to be able to do that..?
"Go for it."
Which makes it interesting! "Dia!"
The mystery is solved quickly as the spell takes effect in a surge of green, Saayas healed fingers tracing through shoulder length auburn locks with a slightly smug smile on lips a touch older than moments ago.
"Thanks Pixie. I hadn't realised that was why the healing wasn't working. Didn't want to ask Sako-san if we could do something about it, when she's done so much. I'll have to bug her for a comb though."
Pixie blinks again, staring at the child- No. This girl is about as much a human child as Pixie herself is.
Which is quite a bit! But also not.
Friend?!
"I'm Niamh," she impulsively tells Saaya, whirling up around the girl and settling in her newly grown- pretty!- locks. It's her true name, it's irresponsible as hell, she should never have done it, and she feels it makes up for some of all this thinking she's had to do today. "Wanna be friends?"
Saaya, in any case, doesn't seem to realise.
"Sure," she says.
-
"Well, do you want to be her friend?" Niamh asked, perched on the get well card from the girl in question.
"I… don't know. She saved me. But she's the reason I was like that to start with. But then Lulu was the one who pushed me over the edge, and…" Saaya points to the card, shrugging as she combs her hair.
"I didn't ask if you felt you should, I asked if you wanted to be, Sa-chan. Bit silly to pretend that isn't the important bit isn't it?" Really, the girl just changed her self-conception to shapeshift with a healing spell. Silly demon-child!
"...point. Yes, I think. Amu-chan's always been doing interesting things, and she needs a friend to teach her not to mentally mutter at people who can't argue back."
"That's still not-"
"And I want to be the one that teaches her, as thanks. And maybe teach her fashion, because she needs help. Badly."
"There we go! We'll make a proper Sidhe of you yet!" Niamh would make sure of it!
Saaya's returning smile would have worried any member of JPs, were they there to see it.
⁂
Reach out for the reactor-.
No.
The power, the tension dies down.
"Saaya? Are you alright?"
Saaya nods, "Just a moment. Thinking about what I've been doing wrong", and she is. Niamh leans out from a ringlet of auburn, smiling encouragingly.
Demons are their spells. Their abilities.
Niamh is Dia. And Bufu, except when it's a tidal wave. Barghest is Animal Leg. Power is Recarm, bullshit as that spell is.
…
That's what she's been avoiding, isn't it? That the reactor, the Destruction that answers with a thought, isn't a tool. Isn't something she should be reaching out for.
But that would make her…
Saaya runs her fingers through her hair as Niamh takes flight, a smirk coming to bear on her lips that is old hat and yet something new.
"I've been doing it wrong. So very wrong. I'm not… my control isn't bad because I'm injured. It's not slipping free because I can't aim it."
"Saaya…?" Sako speaks up, worried tone over the intercom, but the tiny Pixie has a grin to match her own smirk as the Seelie perches on a chair.
"Don't worry about it Sako-san. I know what I need to do."
And that's enough. The cat's cradle forms, pieces of mind tugging between her fingers, another pair of her hands joining in to push, the patchwork self's revolutions accelerating as the pieces she has been refusing to consider Self join the dance.
Cat's Cradle. Starry Sky. Firmament.
It's time, Saaya decides, as the energy in her builds, shrugging off a few ribbon-chains of the locket to move properly, the ruby reactor that is part of her mind humming to life- No. Drawing close enough to hear the hum that is always there. It isn't between her thoughts, it is her thoughts. Just... spicy ones, if she malphrases Amu's epitaph.
…silly girl. How could someone be simultaneously so needy for friends, and so scared of them?
Saaya's hair is back. Her body is healed. She's found new role models. People who she'd like to stay with, who genuinely care. Interesting things to learn. She has a demon as a friend even, and Sako is an adult who has actually been reliable enough to trust. Sako rarely tells her what to do, but she's always there to talk to.
"Ha." Saaya laughs, knowing the thought was novel, even with so many memories missing.
Time to stop being a psionic wreck, a charity case. Time to embrace whatever comes next. The cats cradle slacks, just a little. Enough not to cling to the Locket and let her tread water on her own, for the first time since Amu saved her.
The scarf flutters for real, more than destruction rising to the surface now, the block of concrete rising slightly as she reaches for it rather than angling something at it.
Pieces of mind she'd considered Other become part of the network of thread and self once more, just like Niamh has shown her. How Power, Barghest and all the other demons exist.
Not something to reach for, just things that she is.
'Goodbye, whoever I was.'
Erasure-that-is-self flares with the sound of glass-reality shattering, the bang of her finger gun so easy, as her thoughts engulf the target in the blue light of obliteration.
Nothing of the concrete block is left behind but the rush of ozone.
The rest of the room is untouched. Her skin is unbroken. Her mind ripples with the firing of Destruction, but not a thread frays.
"Aha~"
'And hello Saaya of Destruction, whoever, whatever, that ends up being. Nice to meet you.'
AN: Another interlude on the Destruction flavored girl. She's awake~.
Thanks for consistency checking and beta-reading goes to @Baughn , ironically.
Contination of the Sidestory chapter: Crizzling Dreams
-once green eyes open beneath the Diet building.
This girl isn't met by family, however.
Saaya isn't surprised.
"-amabuki, are you aware?"
"-rade Five mental abrasion, Doctor Akamine. It was a reflexive movement, nothing m-."
"-mori-san recovered fully. I still have h-."
Saaya wakes slowly, scattered pieces of cognition leisurely, barely, surfacing from the dark.
The Locket pulses in time with her heart as amber eyes take in the ceiling, not in any rush to fully awaken. It's impossible not to notice it supporting her, bridging gaps in her psyche with spiderwebs of fine chain links. Its presence means little to her.
A quiet alert has been sounding through the medical ward, but it takes the doctor calling her name(?) to pull her gaze from the internal to external.
"Miss Yamabuki, are you… present?"
An interesting question. Yamabuki. Family name. The connection that should be there, isn't. Awareness of it remains to highlight the absence. An expectation of said connection? Fragments that note the absences remain. The ones which should have been screaming, don't. This absence is also noted.
"Yamabuki-chan, can you hear me?"
But is that a reason to respond? What happens if she does?
The doctor frowns, leaning in, worry clear on his face. Salt and pepper hair. Worry lines. Older than her parents, but not by much.
Thoughts shift through molasses, decisions coming… not slowly, but lackadaisical as they meander around patches of inattention. Does it matter if she doesn't reply? Well, what does it matter if she does? The questions don't come consciously, the answers don't come at all.
It takes her long minutes to determine that questions are a request for an answer, and decide that she should give them. It's less a decision than an absence of provided alternatives. The Locket does its job, converting errors and annotations of absence into extrapolated fragments, which settle into place to let her think.
"That isn't possible. Someone alert security, that can't be-"
It almost immediately runs out of material to build from, confined to a room as it is, but by that point Saaya can talk. It reverts to a lesser mode, stitching pieces together instead of wholesale reconstruction. It can be patient when it must.
"I can hear you. Call me Saaya. Not…" Her parents aren't here. Saaya wonders if that would have hurt, before the last… week? Month? Life? She makes the decision anyway, pushing the burned out gulf away for now. She honestly doesn't care that they aren't, but the family name feels off.
Amu had called her Saaya, when she was dying. When her rival was saving her life. It fits better, to the scattered pieces of self that consider a name worth stressing over.
"Her eyes are harvest too, what in god's name-"
He shoots whoever is whispering a glare, before turning back to her. "Miss Saaya, then. You've been through a rather extreme experience, and we are here to help you recover from it."
She supposes that is fine. One hand rests on the locket that is holding her together.
Saaya doesn't feel like reconstructing that 'self', mask, after the freedom of letting go.
So she leans on the artificial structure as they talk at her. She's alive, and that is more than she could have asked for. Not that she had.
⁂
Her memories of before she passed out—died—are hazy, fractured, but she can remember the empty space behind reality.
Demons are real. Huh. Not just the things that Hinamori, and presumably the other 'Guardians', dealt with, but things from Outside. Like in the novels she'd read. She'd tumbled through the hole in reality, and some of her came screaming back from burning on the far side.
That worries her less than she feels it should. As does what she hears of the school.
Saaya knows, by now, that something is deeply wrong with her. Amu fixed some things, healed her body, and it's enough that she's willing to consider forgiving her.
But the places she turned destruction on, those haven't come back. Chain link stitching didn't restore everything.
Or maybe that willingness to forgive is due to the gaping emptiness where stripes of her emotions used to reside. She can tell she would have reacted far worse to the Locket's presence in her mind, two weeks ago.
An idle thought erases her discomfort with the chain links.
⁂
"I am sorry, Miss Saaya, but your parents are held up. I'm sure they'll be here as soon as they can be."
The doctor, Dr. Akamine, seems disappointed on her behalf. They must know by now that her father works in the Diet building overhead. There isn't any need for him to try and cover for them, so she speaks up.
"They won't be. This is probably the last straw on them pretending to care." The doctor goes to speak, so she cuts him off. People's misunderstandings are annoying now that she's free from caring herself. "It doesn't matter. Caring about that was one of the first things I burned. Made them a lot easier to deal with."
He frowns, not commenting, before moving on to what exactly she did to herself. Saaya, barely listening, feels a sudden lurch of jealousy for literally-everybody-else's halfway decent parents. A moment of instinctual Erasure removes the intruding wrongness, the chain-threads burning, and it doesn't come back again.
Neither he nor Saaya call her month long spiral a suicide attempt, but they dance around the term. Him out of worry, her out of some bitter amusement.
Her rival once again stopped her from succeeding. She supposes she'll add that to the list of things to forgive Amu-chan for.
⁂
Makoto Sako is the highest ranking military officer in JPs. It's her job to order their agents into battle with demons, and she has to admit, this kind of mental damage isn't new to her. She isn't a sorcerer herself, nor does JPs have many on staff, because with no known exceptions all sorcerers end up destroying their minds. An accident here, a stressful combat encounter there, and inevitably Japan's care homes for dementia patients have more than their fair share of retired sorcerers.
Hotsuin is no exception. There's a reason JPs is led by a sixteen-year-old instead of either of his parents, and Makoto feels fear each time he takes the field, which isn't often.
Yes, his presence trivialises most opponents.
No, she doesn't protest when he spends his time elsewhere. Nor does she push her own sorcerer subordinates towards combat outside of absolute need. There's a reason they have the Silencer. Demon summoning is often the safer option, and even that… sometimes, the Silencer is the only way to break a link that is draining someone of Macca. Consuming their soul, in simpler terms.
What was new, and troubling, was a teenager showing the same damage. Even worse, by the girl's own admission it was self-inflicted. The way she said it reminded her of some agents, the older ones. The ones that tried to use the cost of summoning beyond their capacity as a form of therapy.
Level five though? That wasn't something the Silencer could fix. Not something anything could fix, even the Director.
Level five was an immediate death sentence.
Hotsuin's unofficial assistant shakes her head and looks up from the file to where said girl sits in a wheelchair beyond the observation glass, as Dr Akamine instructs her. She looks exhausted, still, but coherent now. Pale and bags under her eyes. Makoto makes a note to check she is eating properly.
"Okay, Saaya. Aim for the target we've got set up there, and use your ability. You don't need to push, but it will help us a lot to know what your power does."
Makoto Sako has seen many esoteric abilities since joining JPs, ranging from the childrens' telekinesis to the Director's summons to her own angelic looking Power.
None were quite like the blue light- Cherenkov radiation? No, too blue for that- that rips free from the child's hand with a mutter that the mics just about manage to pick up, her lips quirking up. "Fuck, off."
The surge of energy destroys, obliterates. Sako barely stops herself pressing down on the phone key, her JP's 'phone' drawn and snapped open before she consciously processes reaching for it.
She nearly misses the details, too busy drawing the summoning terminal in an instinctive reaction, but under the flying shards of wood her keen eyes can see something otherwise easily missed in the display of unsettling power.
Where it hit? The energy erased. The other parts of the wooden block went flying, but over half the mass is just gone. Not disintegrated, not torn apart. It disappeared, the space it occupied formatted to nothing. As are chunks of the reinforced walls, sliced through as easily as the wood. Deleted just as easily as her Power would crush a Pixie.
Makoto would have to call it luck that the doctor wasn't hit, considering the fact that the door behind him is missing a chunk.
Abrasion level five and she can do this a single week later. These children worry her, even more than just the bean bag did. And the jokes about that thing weren't doing a good job of hiding the general sense of unease at its existence.
A low hiss distracts both her and the Doctor as Saaya peels her sleeves back curiously, fingers and arms bleeding where spirals of flesh have been erased.
What on earth?!
⁂
A short while later Makoto meets Saaya in person for the first time. Without the glass and distance the fact that the young girl is barely a teenager stands out more. Painfully short red hair compared to her school photo, pale features and an encompassing sense of exhaustion.
Sako makes a mental note to find some actual clothes for the girl to replace the hospital gown. And let her out of the room, perhaps. She looks like she can handle a few minutes.
"Hello, Miss Saaya. I'm Makoto Sako, an officer here in JPs." Saaya blinks, taking in the uniform, before nodding.
"We are something of a government agency," Sako continues. "-though you won't find any record of us out in the world. We deal with, well, demons."
The navy haired woman made the call on her own authority to fully read Saaya into things. The girl's father lacked the clearance, but Mr Yamabuki wasn't here. Hadn't been here, in the week Saaya had laid unconscious. That man…
Using a Diarahan to heal the damage from her ability meant showing her demon summoning anyway.
Neither the appearance of the Power, somewhat judgemental of the child, nor explaining JPs in broad terms gets much of a reaction from the young girl beyond a raised eyebrow.
Some basic questions, easily answered, but less curiosity than she expected.
Basic queries about demons, where they come from, but altogether Saaya came across as very… casual about the whole thing. Uninvolved. You'd swear the girl was a tourist the way she listened about the tragedy at Seiyo.
Maybe she'd been wrong to expect intense curiosity? Mental abrasion level five, and the child was holding a conversation like it was mildly interesting, rather than wasting away like you'd expect from someone on level two.
"So… what happens now?"
"What happens now?" Makoto blinks and repeats the question, wondering what the girl could mean.
"Well, I'm obviously not back to normal, even with what Hinamori- Amu-chan did. And my parents aren't here. So it seems I'm going to be staying for a bit, unless I've missed my mark? JPs are the experts on magic, you said?"
Saaya smiles slightly, a rueful look that fails to ease the young woman's stab of unease. Children shouldn't accept that their parents aren't coming for them as a matter of course. Though her file did mention…
"Miss Saaya, when you said to Dr Akamine about having 'burned' out something to do with your parents, what did you mean?" She's pretty sure she knows.
"I was panicking, I think. A lot of that is hazy, I've only got memories of the memories." Saaya shrugs carelessly, gesturing at her buzz-cut head, mild annoyance crossing her face as her fingers brush the shortened hair. Makoto stifled her frown at the sheer… apathy in her tone, resisting the urge to pull the girl into a hug.
"People, Hinamori and some of my other classmates, were trying to affect me mentally. So I set everything they could touch on fire. Attacked it to remove the… vector? Attack surface?" She shrugs. "That's my power, I think. I can't do anything she could, making things, flying, energy beams… But once I started it just… made sense? Deleting things that bothered me. Things that I'd never been able to fix, so why keep bothering with them? It was so freeing, to just let it all go and not care anymore. Just point, bang, gone."
Saaya says it so casually, a smile on her lips, with that same assuredness that all those summoners had. It's not the same, quite. Associations, not memories. But still, unsettling to hear from a thirteen year old.
She says it so damn casually that Sako almost misses the blunt implication in the amber eyed girl's words, that deleting people could have been her next step.
"Ri… right. For now, with what you can do, we plan on teaching you to control it. And some of the exercises we use to keep mental types out of our heads. They should work well for you. I'm sure Dr Akamine has said, but-"
"Right, right. Don't erase any other parts of myself. Or others. I wasn't planning on it. I can feel how… fragmented I am, Makoto-san. Amu's Locket is tacky and pushy, but I wouldn't want to damage it." She smiles slightly, toying with the Locket as was becoming her habit. It's good to see that she has habits like that, rather than being corpse-still like the more damaged summoners.
"So. You'll teach me how to control this… everything. Then what?"
Then what indeed, Makoto wonders to herself a while later, after Saaya has left for—she checks the schedule—an examination.
It was a thought that stuck with her the rest of the day.
'What do I do now?'
It was a question a younger Makoto had once asked when recovering from her injury, a certain and promised future ripped away from her.
⁂
"Should we really be teaching her how to use this?" Sako said. "My Power already explained. It's an anti-reality effect. It's highly probable it was a key part in how the rift in Seiyo was created. That, the pink haired one, and whatever else Amakawa is up to."
"What's the alternative? Let her run around with a Kagutsuchi damaging ability and fifth tier mental abrasion? Likely worsening it? Her psychic architecture is in shambles and held together by an OoP. We are already stretching procedure just by keeping her here, rather than contacting someone whose job is psionics. Yamabuki-"
"Saaya. She wants to be called Saaya."
"...? Saaya then, is only under our purview because of the demon incursion. And our expertise in mental damage, but realistically psionics isn't in our purview. Manticore will have a fit when they find out."
"Manticore has no experience at all with children."
"Be that as it may-" Neither did they, Fumi was saying, and Manticore at least kept an eye on some. Seiyo was a known phenomenon. "Is keeping her the best choice we can give Saaya?"
"I'm not saying we shouldn't ask the experts, but could we… I don't know, help her stop hurting herself?"
"You've always been soft, Sako. If you are that worried, she's yours to take care of. Yours, specifically. The Director likes his 'Hero Units', but recruiting kids into JPs is beyond even him."
"..."
"What?"
"I might have to get that in writing."
⁂
A few days later sees Saaya in another 'practice room'. Physically, they've confirmed there's nothing wrong with her, something she privately resolves to thank Amu for.
Mentally however, things are not going so well.
A breath in and the not-ruby-reactor blooms. Power. Energy flooding the empty space between thoughts.
Destruction rising, bury your face in white thread, the smell of bleach, ozone, feel erasure-
A scattershot pull, different fragments of self shifting, networking through the Locket to comprehend and grapple with the-
It rips free, flaying the top layer of her palm and spiralling a blade of absence up her wrist.
Air fractures around the target as the world dies at her clumsy command.
And an inch deep gouge of stone cracks as the material is erased, her barely there control over the manifestation slipping into a spiderweb of laughing grooves.
"Not the best…"
She shakes her bleeding hand out, examining the target. "Miss Saaya? Are you alright?" The voice is over the intercom, after the last test.
"I was able to control it, before. It did what I told it to do, mostly. I don't know why it isn't working now." She takes a deep breath, trying to concentrate on one of the mental exercises the Doctor had been teaching her.
Cat's Cradle, Soldiers Bed, Candle. Twisting the connections of the Locket to draw the Saaya-pieces closer together, into different alignments. It… helps, even if it feels odd.
"The strain you were under isn't fully healed. That will affect your control, especially with an ability like this."
He's said it before, and she understands, but it still pissed her off.
Diamond, Cat's Eye.
"Can you summon that fairy again? Pixie?"
"The fair- You are injured again? Of course, we'll call it there for today." The intercom stays on, a slight buzzing. "Ah? Sir, what are- Sako-san said? Of course sir."
Saaya blinks, looking towards the speaker. Well, that sounds like something she could be interested in.
The Locket would be annoyed, if such a thing could be.
It sets about repairing the damage.
Again.
⁂
It isn't Dr Akamine that meets her outside the testing chamber, but a much younger man.
Not out of his teens, silver hair, matching eyes, noble features in a way that would have made her father offer the good drinks. He was dressed like the other JP members but fancier. And that phone… that same as Makoto and Dr Akamine used to summon. But nicer?
In other words, very much the same sort of person she'd always thought of Tadase as, before.
Parts of her mind shift, trying to reach one another, pattern matching that would have been entirely subconscious if she wasn't painfully aware of her own mind and its 'error messages' now.
A crush. Saaya considers for a moment, tugging the Lockets curling threads away so she can actually consider for herself, rather than be told what she should think.
That is likely how she'd have reacted before.
That… hadn't ever really gone anywhere positive with Tadase. And did she really want to be that kind of star struck school girl again? She can accept that he's cute, but rationally speaking?
He snaps the phone shut and turns to her properly as she makes the decision, moment of dissonance cleared with a sharp mental edge.
No. No she did not.
"Saaya-san. I've been meaning to talk with you and Makoto-san asked me to as well. But first."
A purple demon flickers into existence to gesture at her with a silver cup, "Diarahan", before fading away.
Healing magic is becoming familiar to the young girl at this point, much to the annoyance of Dr Akamine's pixie.
"Hotsuin-sama, thank you for your organisation's hospitality and care." Manners are not especially important to her anymore, but no one here has been anything but nice to her.
Being a brat in return didn't make sense. That isn't the sort of person she wants to be. If manners were also hammered into Saaya by her parents… that's a part of the old her she can accept.
"It is JP's duty to deal with such things. Firstly however, I must apologise to you." The noble looking boy- man? Director, Saaya decides on. He has the sense of someone older than his apparent age, but not quite an adult like the teachers. "The actions taken by Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto went unnoticed by me, her cousin, and so I apologise for the harm she inflicted on you."
Lulu de Morcerf. The girl who had twisted her into Amu's image. Who had indirectly shown her how to reach for the Destruction, the endless blue beyond the ruby. How to kill herself piecemeal until-
Cat's Eye, Circles and Triangles.
Mental fingers tug the threads, chainlinks so fine they feel like silk. The locket's chains are less visible these days, and less needed, too.
Deep breath. Taper down the anger- hate, let the flickering fade from clenched fists. Dim the amber glow she can see in her eyes, reflected in the Directors.
Flower, Ghost Dance.
Saaya refocuses, sensing more than seeing the judgemental glance at her hands, where Destruction had rippled, and ripped, with her anger.
That irritated him? After the apology? What did he-
A moment's consideration, modelling his view, and she realises it's not… irritation at the emotion, but the lack of control. A lean of perspective and she understands. Lulu isn't here, so the power was pointless. Wasteful? She can agree with that sort of opinion. That mindset. Empathise with it, even. So…
Candle Thief. Strings jump, an estimation of his mentality, nudged by the Lockets tension.
Oh. That… works nicely. Thank you, Director.
"Sorry. I'm still figuring it out. And I… accept your apology. You messed up, but the school didn't do any better, and they were closer. You're… making sure she can't do it again? Isn't able to make anyone else..."
He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't question the delay in her reply. "I am. As is her grandmother. As is Lulu, I believe. Moving on from that, Makoto-san asked me to talk with you. She was unclear on why, but she is insistent."
Hotsuin left it there, looking at her expectantly. Saaya takes the distraction, ruby-hate dimming.
"I'm not sure either? I'm just… working on controlling my ability. Not like I can do much else. It isn't going very well though." Saaya shrugs, wiping the new blood from her palms onto her jeans where the stains won't show.
"And you are willing to leave it at that?" The Director frowns, more than his resting face does. "You have a powerful ability, but it will be wasted if you don't have the resolve to control it." The phone, still held in his hand, rings. His attention moves to it, seeming to dismiss her as he answers the call.
Saaya frowns, taking in his dismissal, similar yet different to her parents. They dismissed, but this felt… She'd been interesting, but now she's failed on some internal evaluation of his?
Well then. Motivation sparks to life, born of irritation and spite, and it fills a void that had been growing. Warms something that had been chilling, beneath her awareness yet dragging it down.
The Candle Thief is tweaked, a nudge of momentum to make it dynamic, before it's knotted into place for now, the flame flickering and slowly dancing.
She starts from the top, nodding goodbye to Hotsuin as he heads off to whoever was calling him. Rude, but understandable.
Cradle. Soldier's Bed. Candles.
Pieces of mind, directed by the Locket's silk-chain and her own will, shift around that ruby-blue candle light and fan its flame.
⁂
Makoto Sako sighs, straightening her suit and brushing herself down. She isn't fond of being in the Diet building proper at the best of times, and this time she's both on her own and approaching someone she's already fairly sure she isn't going to enjoy talking to.
Not that there are many in the 'upper floors' that she does enjoy conversing with to start with.
The majority of the government above and around Japan are unaware of the work JP's did, most viewing them as an obscured branch of the CIRO agencies. A few know both too much and too little, and so assume they're connected to one of the many cults that make Japan their playground, some of which have more political connections than Sako is entirely comfortable with. Sako cannot blame them for the misunderstanding. They'd be allies if they understood.
Those that are informed mostly treat them like the men in black, the occult boogiemen in the night. This is less inaccurate, and occasionally useful.
Walking into the office, Sako raises an eyebrow at just how quickly the man's secretary makes distance from the man she's here to visit.
"Ah, yes, Ms Sako, from the… lower floors sir. She's on your planner for… five minutes from now." The secretary's defensive tone is hard to miss. Sako notices she's straightening her blouse.
"I'm from JPs, to clarify, Mr Yamabuki."
The man in question's face swiftly changes from annoyed to a careful blank expression at that.
"Please give us some privacy then, Lauren." The assistant nods carefully, picking up a folder from the man's desk and making her way out.
"So. The 'spooks' are up here today. This has something to do with Saaya?" Sako files away the western slang for later consideration. His file had mentioned something about a failed transfer to an embassy, hadn't it?
"Yes, your daughter."
"Or whatever she is now. You know, I assume? Whatever happened to her, that's why you're here?" He straightens up in the chair, moving a page aside to face her properly and gestures to a chair.
"Whatever happened? The incident at the school?" Sako sits. The question takes her slightly off guard.
"No. Though I suppose that could have been her?" Mr Yamabuki raises an eyebrow at her, before sighing. "Or she's just like those demon things from the news."
"What do you mean? Saaya is nothing like those-"
He cuts her off, slumping. "I've been told I'm an empath. I'm sure it's in my record. Whatever 'Saaya' is now, she's not my daughter any more."
It had been in his file. It's why he's been informed, even though he doesn't count as 'useful'. She hadn't expected him to be quite so blunt about it though.
"About… three months ago? There was an explosion upstairs. She'd seemed a bit off that day, but kids, you know? Always upset over something. Saaya was a good girl though, she didn't normally try to make it my problem, unlike her mother."
Sako holds her tongue on that blase comment, the grip on her clipboard tightening.
"Rushed up, pieces of the oak door all over the place. Barely half of it left. And Saaya just sitting there. Nothing but… have you ever seen a wildfire? That was the best thing I could compare it to, the feel around her. A blue wildfire. Then, anyway. Those demons on the news, they fit better."
"Sorry, you said she accessed Destruction months ago? We've been assuming she only recently touched it."
"If that's what you call it. I can't get a read from you spooks, you've all got that meditation technique or whatever it is. She started always feeling like that. Destruction, fire. Wrong fundamentally. That wasn't my daughter."
Sako makes a note of the phrasing, 'wrong', but doesn't interrupt as he continues
"And she proved that with how she started acting from then on. Not listening to us. Falling out with her friends. She stopped going out with them at least, so maybe they could sense the same thing. Stopped being good and started causing problems for us."
Sako takes a moment, frowning to herself as she considers that new information. Saaya had been like that, for months. The girl had said she'd removed her attachment to her parents but… Sako had honestly expected that to at least in part be the actions of a child overreacting.
But no. This man had apparently been able to sense the damage she was doing to herself, and just… done nothing?
"Mr Yamabuki, if you could sense what she was going through, why didn't you say anything? If you know enough to call us 'spooks', and recognise that we have the ability to block your empathic abilities, surely you could have contacted us?"
And surely, she thinks to herself, if you know all that, you could have told us all this two weeks ago rather than ignoring the fact that your daughter has been comatose beneath the very building you work in.
"And do what? Give you lot a reason to look closer at me, because she decided to start causing problems?" He shakes his head, gesturing to where she is sitting. "Not that it did any good."
Sako wonders if JPs has any of the influence that half the politicians seem to think they do, and if Hotsuin can use it to destroy one. That thought gets tucked away, a bit of vindictiveness in Saaya's name she would have to think about.
"Neither did it do her any good, Mr Yamabuki," she reprimands. Sako opens her file, pulling out the earmarked pages.
He accepts them, frowning. "What are these?"
"Medical guardianship forms. Saaya-chan still needs a great deal of help after her experiences, and JP's, we, are the only ones actually able to help with that." The fact that the papers lacked a specific end term, other than as determined by JPs…
Well. If he notices, she has her arguments ready.
Sako watches as he flicks through them, making it to the third page before raised voices become audible through the door.
"-sten to you, of all people. I know my husband is in there-"
"Mrs. Yamabuki, he is in a meeting-"
"A meeting? Like how he was in a 'meeting' when you came by our house?"
Sako hadn't planned for Saaya's mother turning up, but that didn't mean she couldn't put it to use for the girl's benefit. The Director was a great teacher in using an opportunity.
So she keeps quiet as the argument gets closer to the door of the office, smiling at the guest as it slams open.
One look at Mrs. Yamabuki's face is enough to be sure this is such an opportunity.
⁂
Motivation, it turns out, is nothing without an understanding of what you are trying to do.
So by the end of the next session practice, Saaya has a pixie on her head. This is a fact she's decided to be idly amused by.
Hadn't Amu- the cheater -had something like this? The memory is grainy, blood stained and 'folded' twice over by the damage, but Saaya has seen enough in JPs that it's pointless to reject the memory of Amu calling up the tiny maid creature to heal her.
She is missing the pieces of herself that would have put any real heat into hating the idea of 'Charas', as the Doctor has told her the Guardians' familiars are called.
Saaya knows that. Can feel the gap, trace the outline. Could recreate it, not the same but close enough from the outside. The Locket has thankfully given up on jumping to do so at the consideration, by now.
But… Why would she bother recreating hate, when it would only cause her issues?
That would be a troublesome sort of person to be, even if it didn't lead to death.
An idle shift in pattern erases the outline suggested.
This pixie, however, is not nearly as gentle as Amu's.
"You can't just keep destroying yourself because you don't wanna touch the spell! It's more than just physical, you know. I can heal the damage, and will, but you!" This was the third or forth cycle of the tiny creature's rant.
"Pixie, I'm sure Miss Saaya-" Dr Akamine tried to calm his summon down, but..
"And you! Letting her keep blasting herself like this! A great big hypocrita-whattcha-call-it oath that turned out to be! Hmph! You know what I said the last time, not desummoning! You clearly can't be trusted with the kid."
The demon, Pixie, was a mainstay summon of Dr Akamine, having somewhat bonded over a shared interest in healing.
That same shared interest, as far as Saaya could tell, meant the little creature objected greatly to her growing list of injuries caused by invoking the Destruction 'spell'.
"I suppose I did agree. You will have to stay within the facility, of course."
Saaya speaks before the indignant Pixie can respond, "Where else would I go, Doctor?"
He gives her that look of worry, before sighing and gesturing for her to go.
⁂
A few minutes later Pixie and the young girl are in Saaya's… room? The demon was fairly sure that kids don't usually have rooms here, but this looks lived in. Sparsely! There's little- whatchamacallit- emotional investment? But it is clearly the girl's space. Which is something!
You can't befriend a rock, after all.
Darting around curiously, there's not really anything other than 'Saaya's room' it could be classed as, but there aren't many personal effects. From what Pixie knew, It wasn't like Saaya came here with many and hadn't wanted to go and retrieve any.
A few sets of clothes, medication that she isn't meant to take on her own unless Sako was busy— She hasn't been yet —and some books that look well read. And a JP's standard phone on the desk, though the demon can tell it lacks the summoning program with a glance.
Odd though. These 'JPs' humans are usually very possessive about their 'branding'.
Enough deep thoughts!
"So, so so. What do you wanna do, Saaya? Oh, do you want to play games!?"
Kids like games, right? It's been longer than Pixie would prefer since she last got to actually spend time with any. Other than healing them. Which is very different! And makes her feel very grownup, except she's not! Nor is she ready for that.
Being a grownup High Pixie is, she presumes, mostly boring. You gotta be all resp-on-sible. She knows the word, she just doesn't wanna think it.
Saaya raises an eyebrow, sitting down on the bed. "If you want to. I thought you were going to explain what I was doing wrong though."
The Pixie squinted in response. Did she? Games were something she thought all kids liked, but Saaya isn't the most kid-like kid she's met, even counting only the ones in JPs.
"Weeeell. I was going to ask why you were keeping your spell so far away when you cast it. It's gotta be harder to control without touching it, isn't it?"
Frowning, Saaya touches the side of her head, before dropping her hand. There! What was that, sadness? Why sadness?
"How else would I control it? I summon it up and then sort of…" She trails off, toying with the Locket. "I angle the 'me' to aim it. But there isn't enough me to stop it 'splashing' out at the moment."
Pixie takes a moment to stare at the young girl, before flying up and bopping her on the head.
"Saaya-Idiot! That would mean if you did have more, it would just damage you more that way!"
Rubbing her forehead, Saaya tilts her head slightly. "How else would I aim it though? It just lashes out."
"Because you aren't controlling it, you're just stopping the spell from hitting other stuff by being in the way! You're already doing it more like me than the other people here, so you should just go the whole way!"
Pixie lands on one of the books, looking up at the girl and trying to figure out how to make her understand. Demons never had this problem! "I don't know Dia, I am Dia. It's part of me, like all my other spells. I don't have to control where it goes, because it's me and I know where I want it to go."
Saaya stares at her, clearly taking in the wisdom she is sharing. As she should!
"I.. think I get it?" A twitch of her hand, and blue flickers in the air, the scent of ozone making the Pixies nose twitch dramatically as Saaya frowns down at the sudden papercuts littering her hand. "I'll try that tomorrow. Sako-san asked me not to practice in here."
What a good kid! Not-kid. Demon-kid? Saaya was weird.
"Sure!" Pixie nod nods, the coil of her hair shifting.
There it is again! But first!
"Saaya-chan, I'm going to heal you, okay? Just think about your hands being okay." She starts to cast before being interrupted by a thoughtful looking Saaya.
"Wait a second, Pixie. You said you don't control how I heal, right?"
"Yeah? I don't know human bio-whatsit."
Saaya frowns, thinking deeply. It's good to see, but also not very interesting. But Pixie waits, knowing that it's important to let even weird demon-kids think things out.
"So it just heals me to how I think I should be? Or how I feel is right?"
"Kinda? It turns you back into what you should be. It's harder to use on humans because you all grow, so it wastes mana fighting ageing and stuff."
"Ageing? …Is that why- Never mind, I have something I want to try. Give me another minute first?" Saaya rummages through the bedside table, pulling out another phone—scratched and damaged—and checking something on it.
The demon nods curiously. She isn't sure what the little destruction child is going to do, but so far she's been weirdly interesting!
And then blinks, wings fluttering slowly as she tilts her head.
Demons don't see the world quite like humans. That is something Pixie knows, fundamentally. Humans age, they change, they break. They grow. Demons don't normally break, they just… are or aren't. Demons that try to grow usually break. Pixies that try to be responsible get responsibilities. Pixie is happy not to!
But… watching Saaya wind the artefact's chain around a finger, her eyes chasing some invisible thread?
The closest thing Pixie can think of is a demon learning a new spell. The alteration of self that changes both who they are and what they are capable of.
It's visible to the perception-awareness of demonkind, the twisting- flensing -of self that rewrites self-concept to better suit purpose ripples across Saaya as she nods to herself before looking back at Pixie.
Humans aren't meant to be able to do that..?
"Go for it."
Which makes it interesting! "Dia!"
The mystery is solved quickly as the spell takes effect in a surge of green, Saayas healed fingers tracing through shoulder length auburn locks with a slightly smug smile on lips a touch older than moments ago.
"Thanks Pixie. I hadn't realised that was why the healing wasn't working. Didn't want to ask Sako-san if we could do something about it, when she's done so much. I'll have to bug her for a comb though."
Pixie blinks again, staring at the child- No. This girl is about as much a human child as Pixie herself is.
Which is quite a bit! But also not.
Friend?!
"I'm Niamh," she impulsively tells Saaya, whirling up around the girl and settling in her newly grown- pretty!- locks. It's her true name, it's irresponsible as hell, she should never have done it, and she feels it makes up for some of all this thinking she's had to do today. "Wanna be friends?"
Saaya, in any case, doesn't seem to realise.
"Sure," she says.
-
"Well, do you want to be her friend?" Niamh asked, perched on the get well card from the girl in question.
"I… don't know. She saved me. But she's the reason I was like that to start with. But then Lulu was the one who pushed me over the edge, and…" Saaya points to the card, shrugging as she combs her hair.
"I didn't ask if you felt you should, I asked if you wanted to be, Sa-chan. Bit silly to pretend that isn't the important bit isn't it?" Really, the girl just changed her self-conception to shapeshift with a healing spell. Silly demon-child!
"...point. Yes, I think. Amu-chan's always been doing interesting things, and she needs a friend to teach her not to mentally mutter at people who can't argue back."
"That's still not-"
"And I want to be the one that teaches her, as thanks. And maybe teach her fashion, because she needs help. Badly."
"There we go! We'll make a proper Sidhe of you yet!" Niamh would make sure of it!
Saaya's returning smile would have worried any member of JPs, were they there to see it.
⁂
Reach out for the reactor-.
No.
The power, the tension dies down.
"Saaya? Are you alright?"
Saaya nods, "Just a moment. Thinking about what I've been doing wrong", and she is. Niamh leans out from a ringlet of auburn, smiling encouragingly.
Demons are their spells. Their abilities.
Niamh is Dia. And Bufu, except when it's a tidal wave. Barghest is Animal Leg. Power is Recarm, bullshit as that spell is.
…
That's what she's been avoiding, isn't it? That the reactor, the Destruction that answers with a thought, isn't a tool. Isn't something she should be reaching out for.
But that would make her…
Saaya runs her fingers through her hair as Niamh takes flight, a smirk coming to bear on her lips that is old hat and yet something new.
"I've been doing it wrong. So very wrong. I'm not… my control isn't bad because I'm injured. It's not slipping free because I can't aim it."
"Saaya…?" Sako speaks up, worried tone over the intercom, but the tiny Pixie has a grin to match her own smirk as the Seelie perches on a chair.
"Don't worry about it Sako-san. I know what I need to do."
And that's enough. The cat's cradle forms, pieces of mind tugging between her fingers, another pair of her hands joining in to push, the patchwork self's revolutions accelerating as the pieces she has been refusing to consider Self join the dance.
Cat's Cradle. Starry Sky. Firmament.
It's time, Saaya decides, as the energy in her builds, shrugging off a few ribbon-chains of the locket to move properly, the ruby reactor that is part of her mind humming to life- No. Drawing close enough to hear the hum that is always there. It isn't between her thoughts, it is her thoughts. Just... spicy ones, if she malphrases Amu's epitaph.
…silly girl. How could someone be simultaneously so needy for friends, and so scared of them?
Saaya's hair is back. Her body is healed. She's found new role models. People who she'd like to stay with, who genuinely care. Interesting things to learn. She has a demon as a friend even, and Sako is an adult who has actually been reliable enough to trust. Sako rarely tells her what to do, but she's always there to talk to.
"Ha." Saaya laughs, knowing the thought was novel, even with so many memories missing.
Time to stop being a psionic wreck, a charity case. Time to embrace whatever comes next. The cats cradle slacks, just a little. Enough not to cling to the Locket and let her tread water on her own, for the first time since Amu saved her.
The scarf flutters for real, more than destruction rising to the surface now, the block of concrete rising slightly as she reaches for it rather than angling something at it.
Pieces of mind she'd considered Other become part of the network of thread and self once more, just like Niamh has shown her. How Power, Barghest and all the other demons exist.
Not something to reach for, just things that she is.
'Goodbye, whoever I was.'
Erasure-that-is-self flares with the sound of glass-reality shattering, the bang of her finger gun so easy, as her thoughts engulf the target in the blue light of obliteration.
Nothing of the concrete block is left behind but the rush of ozone.
The rest of the room is untouched. Her skin is unbroken. Her mind ripples with the firing of Destruction, but not a thread frays.
"Aha~"
'And hello Saaya of Destruction, whoever, whatever, that ends up being. Nice to meet you.'
AN: Another interlude on the Destruction flavored girl. She's awake~.
Thanks for consistency checking and beta-reading goes to @Baughn , ironically.
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
-and thanks to Nero for the extra insight into her character. As is usual with these, the interlude is canon and the events shown happen(ed) as they are shown, but the exact wording can be off, and there may be some added bias. In particular, do not assume Saaya's assumptions about much of anything at all are correct. Or that they are incorrect. Look, she's a traumatised thirteen-year-old.
This is the last interlude I was waiting for before closing this vote, so I'll give it until next evening in case anyone changes their mind.
This is the last interlude I was waiting for before closing this vote, so I'll give it until next evening in case anyone changes their mind.
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For a while, I've been worried this story has been heading towards themes I really don't like to read. Now, seeing the remnants of Saaya putting themselves together into something closer to a gun with thoughts than the person we were trying to save, I can confirm that the story is firmly diving into territory I don't like.
If I try to keep participating in this quest, I'm not going to enjoy it. I'll be miserable. So, I'm dropping out here. I wish you all the best of luck creating a story you enjoy.
If I try to keep participating in this quest, I'm not going to enjoy it. I'll be miserable. So, I'm dropping out here. I wish you all the best of luck creating a story you enjoy.
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- Location
- Laniakea
Ugh, lemme guess, Saaya's daddy is one of those political connections that one of the cults in question have backing them. Possibly Hikawa's cult, in the worse case. Maybe Manticore's, assuming whichever cult has embedded itself in Manticore isn't exactly the same as Hikawa's cult, which still isn't off the table. Empathy might not be the only skill he has at his disposal, if so.
.....That might be a bit tricky to manage.
Saaya apparently burning out her own Intimacies with her parents while maintaining her vindictive streak means she's liable to not think too hard about bulldozing them if given a reason. In fact, it might make her particularly eager to.
Hotsuin authorizing her to be trained in using her power makes for a double-edged sword in that way.
- Location
- San Diego, CA
Got some sleep. Read the Shugo Chara wiki a little. Now to try to unpack some of this. SO much to unpack. Keep in mind that this is from a view of a person who has not played any of the Persona games nor has seen Shugo Chara.
So, despite the fact that we as Amu went to all the trouble of trying to keep Saaya's memories and personality intact, we already see signs of how short we fell. Not completely Amu's fault; this was an uphill battle to begin with, with Saaya potentially having a bad home life. But after reading the wiki and saw that this marks the fourth time Saaya has been involved in an incident?
Amu is a good person and is doing her best, but she probably made a mistake somewhere, as children are opt to do.
However, players should take comfort in that most, if not all, of the damage done to Saaya was not the result of player actions, but a result of the Shugo Chara plot and GM fiat that was needed for the plot to move forward. Saaya was not meant to survive the ordeal in the first place, and the only reason she is recovering is because we decided that giving up the locket to save Saaya's life is very much in Amu's character.
And here we see Saaya's first power in action, turned on herself. She can erase thoughts and emotions. Very disturbing that our first view of this power is to erase aspects of previous self.
Compare and contrast Saaya with Kana. Kana wanted desperately to delete the part of herself that wanted to be childish and go back to her loving but abusive mother. Saaya can delete parts of herself that trouble her whenever she wants to, and either the level 5 abrasion has removed her feelings toward her parents, or she deleted them herself.
In Kana's case Amu and Utau were able to reconsile Kana's parts of herself and reassemble the original without too much trauma. However with Saaya we get to see pieces of what might have happened if Kana was successful; Saaya was successful in mental self surgury on herself with aid from Amu and the locket and deleted the parts of herself that cared for her parents.
If Saaya isn't careful with her power she may end up as a Narcissistic Sociopath.
A question that never gets answered here that popped into my head was if Saaya can affect the thoughts of others, or if it is limited to just physical aspects of reality. Honestly, if Saaya can learn to project her power to delete associations to others and masters the power to a point where she only deletes what she wants, she would be extremely in demand as a psychologist/psychiatrist specialized in treating PTSD disorders.
Of course that would be dependent if she can learn to read minds as well, and we also know what she (used to?) feels on that subject.
Oh, the feels. Though to be fair, 'What do I do now?' is something that gets asked by many, many people recovering from trageties and isn't unique. To quote Rocky Balboa, "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward."
Not going to comment much further on Saaya's parents. @PistachioCookies already said what I wanted to say.
On one hand, Saaya has reprogramed herself so that she is no longer suicidal. On the other hand, she deliberately performed mental self surgery in such a way as to artificailly remove her negative feelings, and does so without much thought.
Also, Saaya is being very tsundere towards Amu throughout this section.
Sako pulls a fast one on Saaya's parents. The state now has guardianship over Saaya for the foreseeable future. Though given that Saaya now views Sako as a better role model than her parents, it is probably for the best.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Saaya start calling Sako "sempai" in the future.
@Baughn, unless you are planning on making Saaya an antagonist in the future, we are probably going to want a character sheet on her sooner than later. If the Director won't take her as a hero unit, I'm pretty sure Amu will. ^_^
So the mental exercises Saaya now uses to control her powers is Cat's cradle? I guess the exercise done all mentally using the mental chains that the locket is providing. Will we see Saaya start carrying some yarn on her to idly practice in the classroom or use as a fouci for her powers when she gives up the locket?
Did Saaya san just edit herself in front of Dr. Akamine?
I don't know enough about Shugo Chara to know what happened 3 months ago. Anyone want to briefly explain the incident to me or direct me where I can look up that information myself?
More concious self surgery. At least Niamh notices when it happens and she gets called out on it this time.
And here is the budding of friendhsip between Niamh and Saaya. Niamh is probably leaving Dr Akamine and is going to be Saaya's demon familiar, isn't she?
This was very confusing initially. I originally thought that "Dia" was the Chara, and that somehow a piece of Amu got left behind with Saaya or that the Pixie was imitating Amu's Dia. Dia was the only one of Amu's Chara that Saaya did not do a ? chara change for. I had to read again to notice that Dia was a healing spell in the Persona universe.
Lol. I doubt Niamh has realized that as Saaya's new friend, she has voluntarily taken up some responsibility of Saaya's well being.
Tsundere.
One last self edit to gain control of her powers, because why not?
Now I know why @Nero200 was so horrified at Ami's thought processes and @Quine had very different views. Unfortunately Nero200 has a more direct influence on the story by writing directly as a guest author.
Overall, I would like to congratulate @Nero200 for writing out a well thought out horror piece. The only thing I am going to complain about is how jaring the changes to point of view were. Took me two or three reads to figure out that there were three points of views, and that the Dia being talked about by Niamh was not Dia the Chara somehow manifested for Saaya but Dia the spell.
On another note though, I agree with Quine that this story is veering towards some subjects which may be very uncomfortable for some (child abandonment and/or child abuse and/or irresponsible use of telepathy and the subsequent mental effects on the child) which may trigger some people, though I personally will be sticking around for a while longer. It is especially jarring in this case because of the self mutilation Saaya did to herself, which we as players were trying and unable to prevent. I will miss Quine's participation, as I enjoyed his more positive outlook on the world.
@Baughn, you may want to put some tags or warnings somewhere in the thread. I doubt when people voted for the "Group of dilinquents" bane they would be going off the deep end on the subject of child abuse, depression, and self mutilation.
So, despite the fact that we as Amu went to all the trouble of trying to keep Saaya's memories and personality intact, we already see signs of how short we fell. Not completely Amu's fault; this was an uphill battle to begin with, with Saaya potentially having a bad home life. But after reading the wiki and saw that this marks the fourth time Saaya has been involved in an incident?
Amu is a good person and is doing her best, but she probably made a mistake somewhere, as children are opt to do.
However, players should take comfort in that most, if not all, of the damage done to Saaya was not the result of player actions, but a result of the Shugo Chara plot and GM fiat that was needed for the plot to move forward. Saaya was not meant to survive the ordeal in the first place, and the only reason she is recovering is because we decided that giving up the locket to save Saaya's life is very much in Amu's character.
And here we see Saaya's first power in action, turned on herself. She can erase thoughts and emotions. Very disturbing that our first view of this power is to erase aspects of previous self.
Compare and contrast Saaya with Kana. Kana wanted desperately to delete the part of herself that wanted to be childish and go back to her loving but abusive mother. Saaya can delete parts of herself that trouble her whenever she wants to, and either the level 5 abrasion has removed her feelings toward her parents, or she deleted them herself.
In Kana's case Amu and Utau were able to reconsile Kana's parts of herself and reassemble the original without too much trauma. However with Saaya we get to see pieces of what might have happened if Kana was successful; Saaya was successful in mental self surgury on herself with aid from Amu and the locket and deleted the parts of herself that cared for her parents.
If Saaya isn't careful with her power she may end up as a Narcissistic Sociopath.
A question that never gets answered here that popped into my head was if Saaya can affect the thoughts of others, or if it is limited to just physical aspects of reality. Honestly, if Saaya can learn to project her power to delete associations to others and masters the power to a point where she only deletes what she wants, she would be extremely in demand as a psychologist/psychiatrist specialized in treating PTSD disorders.
Of course that would be dependent if she can learn to read minds as well, and we also know what she (used to?) feels on that subject.
Oh, the feels. Though to be fair, 'What do I do now?' is something that gets asked by many, many people recovering from trageties and isn't unique. To quote Rocky Balboa, "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward."
Not going to comment much further on Saaya's parents. @PistachioCookies already said what I wanted to say.
On one hand, Saaya has reprogramed herself so that she is no longer suicidal. On the other hand, she deliberately performed mental self surgery in such a way as to artificailly remove her negative feelings, and does so without much thought.
Also, Saaya is being very tsundere towards Amu throughout this section.
Sako pulls a fast one on Saaya's parents. The state now has guardianship over Saaya for the foreseeable future. Though given that Saaya now views Sako as a better role model than her parents, it is probably for the best.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Saaya start calling Sako "sempai" in the future.
@Baughn, unless you are planning on making Saaya an antagonist in the future, we are probably going to want a character sheet on her sooner than later. If the Director won't take her as a hero unit, I'm pretty sure Amu will. ^_^
So the mental exercises Saaya now uses to control her powers is Cat's cradle? I guess the exercise done all mentally using the mental chains that the locket is providing. Will we see Saaya start carrying some yarn on her to idly practice in the classroom or use as a fouci for her powers when she gives up the locket?
Did Saaya san just edit herself in front of Dr. Akamine?
I don't know enough about Shugo Chara to know what happened 3 months ago. Anyone want to briefly explain the incident to me or direct me where I can look up that information myself?
More concious self surgery. At least Niamh notices when it happens and she gets called out on it this time.
And here is the budding of friendhsip between Niamh and Saaya. Niamh is probably leaving Dr Akamine and is going to be Saaya's demon familiar, isn't she?
This was very confusing initially. I originally thought that "Dia" was the Chara, and that somehow a piece of Amu got left behind with Saaya or that the Pixie was imitating Amu's Dia. Dia was the only one of Amu's Chara that Saaya did not do a ? chara change for. I had to read again to notice that Dia was a healing spell in the Persona universe.
Lol. I doubt Niamh has realized that as Saaya's new friend, she has voluntarily taken up some responsibility of Saaya's well being.
Tsundere.
One last self edit to gain control of her powers, because why not?
Now I know why @Nero200 was so horrified at Ami's thought processes and @Quine had very different views. Unfortunately Nero200 has a more direct influence on the story by writing directly as a guest author.
Overall, I would like to congratulate @Nero200 for writing out a well thought out horror piece. The only thing I am going to complain about is how jaring the changes to point of view were. Took me two or three reads to figure out that there were three points of views, and that the Dia being talked about by Niamh was not Dia the Chara somehow manifested for Saaya but Dia the spell.
On another note though, I agree with Quine that this story is veering towards some subjects which may be very uncomfortable for some (child abandonment and/or child abuse and/or irresponsible use of telepathy and the subsequent mental effects on the child) which may trigger some people, though I personally will be sticking around for a while longer. It is especially jarring in this case because of the self mutilation Saaya did to herself, which we as players were trying and unable to prevent. I will miss Quine's participation, as I enjoyed his more positive outlook on the world.
@Baughn, you may want to put some tags or warnings somewhere in the thread. I doubt when people voted for the "Group of dilinquents" bane they would be going off the deep end on the subject of child abuse, depression, and self mutilation.
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- Location
- Laniakea
This isn't a Shugo Chara thing. Shugo Chara-wise, Lulu's powers (and Nikaido's X-Egg extraction procedure) were never evidenced to produce any lingering side effects after Amu purified their Eggs with Open Heart (and Open Heart, obviously, was never evidenced to leave any side effects). Saaya would probably show up perfectly bitchy - read: fine - in the upcoming sequel, if she shows up at all.
This incident in question is from the backstory Saaya has in this quest, as detailed in the previous Sidestory that focused on Saaya, this one. Here, Saaya first exercised her powers in her house and blew up a chunk of her bedroom.
And apparently continued using them on her own mind, up until the incident at school.
I can definitely feel where you're coming from.
Mean girl that she canonically was, minor character that she might have been in-series, having a character from source material getting handed down this sort of brain damage sure doesn't paint a rosy outlook for the fates of the other characters.
Your efforts thus far shall be remembered.
I pledge to continue to keep up the fight to preserve the psyches of the remaining characters as much as my contributions may allow.
......I am aware that probably makes me a masochist of some kind.
- Location
- San Diego, CA
Ah. Thank you. I skipped over that Sidestory, because I found it hard to read and understand as it referenced a lot of incidents that were covered in the official media and jumped from scene to scene extremely quickly.
- Location
- The Beach
Oof her Dad (and it seems mother too) are real pieces of work. Saaya was in a self-destructive spiral, went "no daughter of mine would do that so she's clearly not my daughter anymore". Asshole.
Hello Saaya. Seems like she's finally in a place where she's not on life-support anymore with the Locket, and finally ready to consider who she wants to be instead of just destroying parts of herself she doesn't like.
So they know about Manticore huh? Not that they know what they are up to I guess.
- Location
- Laniakea
Ah.
Well for what this is worth..... so as far as official media goes on Saaya, she was the president of Tadase's fanclub, which was a not-quite-Mean-Girls clique with 4 followers that used to tag along everywhere with her. Rich girl, or at least her ojou-style drill curls strongly implied it. Her main defining character traits were pride and a strong ego (or narcissism, if you were feeling less charitable). She eventually started to regard Amu as a "rival" of sorts, due to Tadase's romantic interest in Amu.
At one point early on, Nakaido brainwashes her by doing something to her Heart's Egg that greys it out but without extracting it or turning it into an X-Egg, in order to make her lie to Kukai about things Tadase never said in order to damage their friendship. The next time her Heart's Egg is seen, it's back to the normal color - but that's also when it being turned into an X-Egg and X-Chara (along with her flunkies' Eggs) by this one foreign prince who was wholly unimpressed by the attempts of Saaya's club to suck up to him.
In Shugo Chara anime canon, her parents are never seen - but her father, rather than being a Japanese politician, was known to lead a company called "Yamabuki Concern" and in the episode of the show where Saaya has her Heart's Egg manipulated by Lulu, her father intended to move their family to Los Angeles in the US for business and transfer her to another school there. Saaya throws herself her own farewell party at school, where she plays the piano badly, does a Flamenco dance.... and announces a competition with Amu in 3 stages, including a Balancing Beam Walking contest, a flower-arranging contest and dodgeball.
She loses the first 2 and Lulu takes advantage of her frustration to turn her Heart's Egg into a ?-Egg, which makes her transform into Hinamori Dream. When trying to persuade her to stop emulating Amu, Amu calls Saaya "stubborn, selfish, egotistical and vain" but also notes the upside to it means that she doesn't tend to get discouraged by much (i.e. she bulldozes through things that might be daunting on the sheer girth of her own ego). In Exalted terms, the sort of person you'd might expect to naturally have more than 1 dot in Integrity, perhaps.
The state of her relationship with her parents (and her parents' relationship with each other) is never mentioned either, but at the end of the episode, Saaya remains in Japan mentioning that she persuaded her father to let her stay alone in the country by herself.
That can be interpreted in multiple ways. The more charitable interpretation would be that her parents were so soft and trusting on their daughter, they caved in to her last-minute begging. And that when Saaya says "by herself", she really means her plus an army of domestic workers waiting on her hand-and-foot at home in whatever luxury property she resides at.
The less-charitable interpretation, which I assume is being taken in this quest, is that they didn't care enough about her personal wellbeing to argue back when she insisted on staying presumably in the stubborn way Amu points out she acts and just threw money and a house at her to keep her pacified.
Her father being an empath means he has some low-level psionic ability, somehow. Zero-dot Empathy, I would guess.
I feel like there's a limit to how much of an asshole anybody with Empathy abilities can be, which is why I suspect he's been indoctrinated by one of the cults Makoto Sako mentions some of the politicians might be involved in. Which is why I'm thinking it may be of a tricky situation to manage.
At the start, when that sidestory mentioned that Saaya's father was a politician in this quest rather than a businessman, I was thinking he could perhaps be leveraged eventually to act against Manticore or at least against their own political backers.
I still think it might be possible to get him to put in some work for us, but Saaya having deleted her own intimacies with them makes it a problem, since she's liable to go off the rails if she gets mad at them.
Especially with this new "Saaya of Destruction" attitude she's taken towards her life.
I couldn't help but think while I was reading this part that a more mentally-stable person would've been able to answer this question pretty quickly:
Because the usual and sane, if mundane and unexciting answer, should really be: "Go back to school, graduate, join the workforce and have a steady career".
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- Location
- San Diego, CA
Honestly, I feel like the "Saaya of Destruction" attitude doesn't mean much yet. Saaya has not really defined her new self yet other than cleaving much of the negative aspects of her old life from her through self surgery. She intentionally self mutilated herself to start her life over relatively fresh. We as players feel disturbed because of how she used her powers on herself, but if look at this event as a deck of Tarot cards, this was a Tower card on Saaya's life. Yeah, the fall hurt, but she has a chance here to rebuild herself positively and self surgery asside, is on her way there.
She has decided on new positive role models to look up to (Makoto Sako and the JPs) as well as new friends (Niamh) and old rivals (friends) to help her define herself and create ethical boundries for her new powers.
As much as Saaya considers Amu a rival, I don't think she can realisticaly say to herself now that Amu isn't deserving of her friendship.
...
Amu is such a sucker for difficult projects.
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- Location
- The Beach
Being an empath doesn't really stop someone from having their own biases and narcissism on what those feelings mean, or being an asshole. He clearly has a high opinion of himself but Saaya doesn't really come from a happy home life, and his reaction reads rather similarly to stories I've heard IRL about some parents not accepting that their child is suicidal. In a world with demons, that's a pretty easy coping mechanism for him to just say "well my daughter would never do that, therefore that's not my daughter" and just absolve themselves of any responsibility for how it got to that point. That's why Sako was so pissed, and went with the idea to just get Saaya away from them and essentially take custody.
When dealing with someone who is/was suicidal, saying "just do whatever your 'normal' future was before" doesn't help when they had no hope in that future anyway, whether or not they used magic to delete parts about themselves they hated. It'll be a long road to recovery for Saaya but now she at least feels in some control of her life for the first time in a long time, if ever.
And the "Saaya of Destruction" bit is her referencing how Niamh "is" whatever spell she's casting, and that was how she found control.
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Vote closed
- Location
- Laniakea
Yeah, that's how I interpreted it too - and her needing to assume that mentality likewise means she's currently viewing herself as an embodiment of destruction.
Which means, in turn, that whatever else she eventually decides to rebuild herself as and whichever other role models she has, she's decided the core of it is going to be "person who erases things".
How positive that could be considered is debatable, but there's a risk of her ending up a bit too gung-ho and ready to turn to her powers as a solution to stuff. JP's and that demon are not going to be moderating influences on that. JP's is a paramilitary organization and they weren't training her to use her powers for no reason at all, especially when it's implied Hotsuin was keen on picking her up for his "hero unit". Meanwhile Niamh wants to turn her into a Sidhe.
It will basically fall onto Amu to provide a tempering influence going forward, to avoid Saaya ending up as - as @Quine put it so succintly - a "gun with thoughts".
Saaya's father was deliberately made a politician instead of a businessman in this quest and I suspect that change wasn't made for no reason at all. The only thing I'm actually confident in saying about the family at this point is that the father gave up on his daughter seemingly on the spot 3 months ago, when she blew up her room (which isn't suicidal behavior exactly).
I'm not even wholly confident that the father was having an affair with his secretary, as seems to be implied by the mother - if he's really involved with a cult, there could be an alternative (if not necessarily more ethical) explanation for the "meeting".