Sora Myoudouin

[Those of you looking for Sora's monthly letter home will be mostly disappointed; on a taped-together clipboard in the room she's sharing with Hana and Eri sits a short document, maybe a page or two at most, the girl in question holding a pen and sitting on the bed working on it. She looks... a lot more peaceful than she's been. ((This letter is IC; there's a standard, AC-friendly list at the bottom of this post.))]

Professor Himesaki,

I think... it's time I stopped crying home over every little thing that happens to me. I'm not a strong person. I know that. It's what got me into trouble for so long. It's made me a broken wreck, it's made me depend on my friends just to keep me going, and it's made me make some bad decisions. And it's coming back to haunt me now, because I can't learn from the past, and I can't keep myself from doing whatever my heart says is a good idea. It took Eri to help me see that, and I'm not ashamed to say that it's when I finally broke down. It's been a long time coming, honestly, and I think I needed it. I feel like a lot of my issues washed away with my tears.

I've done a lot of thinking, a lot of soul-searching, since then. And I made a decision. Back when I was with Dita, and I climbed that mountain... I thought I understood what I wanted for myself then. But as much as I thought I knew, I was just lying to myself. I didn't know what I wanted. But I know what I want now. I'm going to make something of myself. I'm going to live for my sake, and not to find my life's value in what others think. That's what got me in trouble before. That's what made my life a hell of my own design for a decade, no matter how much I liked it. That... even if it was the life I wanted to live, it wasn't living. And I swore I wouldn't do it again.

I will change myself. I swear it. I'm not going to be that girl that is happy when everyone around her is happy and wonders why she doesn't feel complete. I'm going to seize my own happiness, my own way. I'm going to live looking forward to the road ahead, not looking over my shoulder to make sure I'm not going to hurt someone. I can't live like that anymore. So... I think this is the last letter like this you're going to get from me. I'll send reports like I'm supposed to, but I don't need to burden you with my problems, and I don't need to dredge everything up again just for the sake of housekeeping. I know I'm being a little weird, but... try not to worry about me? I'm okay now. It'll take a little while before I'm totally back to normal, but just trust me, Professor. Everything's going to be fine.

Take care.

Sora Myoudouin

[There's an extra copy of the letter that she's got attached to the clipboard, which is leaning against the wall. The usual addressed envelope is sitting with the letter on open desk space. Sora's staring off into an open wall for whatever reason, a faintly determined expression on her face.]

===
Activity list:

- Shine 11 | Darkened Skies ~ At the Breaking Point, and 20 tags with Mad, Yuki, Momo, and Kamille
- Phase Eleven: Keep Calm and Drink Tea (11 with Laura)
- Another Landing/New Blood New Battles... (3+ with Mobius One)
- Unnamed Kamille post (11 with Kamille)
- Kamogawa says hello (6+ with Hoshi; 6 with Hana; 23+ with Eri)
- Therapy (6 with Eri)
- Shine 12 | The Coming Dawn ~ Resolve (+5), and 11 tags with Momo and Gen
- In the War in the Pacific combat log, 8 tags with Hana and Muginami
- Confessions of a Hero/Alcohol and Mad does not Mix (8 with Mad)
- Shine 13 | The Coming Dawn ~ Daybreak (+5), and 4 tags with Kamille
- 3rd weapon drawn: GN Beam Saber Short (6+ with Setsuna)
- Behind you (2+ with Elena)

Three posts and a whole bunch of tags. I'm good. I'm also probably not going to be writing big long letters like I did before, so expect just lists of activity. (I'm sure you're all happy about it.)

[As usual, a small stack of paper is on Sora's desk, a pen atop it; a small black notebook sits next to the stack. Unusually for her, though, this one seems to be taking her longer; she seems to just stare into space sometimes while she's supposedly writing. Feel free to review the letter or the notebook, though she'll be some combination of angry and embarrassed if you're caught with the latter. ((This letter is IC; there's a standard, AC-friendly list of activity below it.))]

Professor Himesaki,

Um. I don't know how to even begin. I... I'm just going to start my report.

I'm sure you're aware, but I reported a number of morale issues on the team, many involving Hana, and being traceable to Seiren and myself. With the help of Tsukasa, we determined it was time to put those issues to rest. The resulting group therapy session mostly just brought something out into the open that we already knew: Hana needed a better grip on what she is - what we are. We're soldiers. That's a lesson I needed to learn myself, and while I'm not proud of it, one Seiren taught me handily. She's... still a little too coarse for my sensibilities, but I've seen enough by now that I can understand what she's teaching me. As much as I complain about her, as much as I hate what tends to happen to Hana when she's around... I appreciate that she's willing to help us.

Tsukasa gave us assignments to improve our teamwork, either with each other or with any given pilot; I took my copy back to my room while I reflected on things. Julia stopped by to see how the session went, which made me happy, considering I haven't talked to her much lately. After a few words with her about our team dysfunction, I went ahead to the kitchens for duty as assigned; I found a new pilot there, Mobius One (I assume it's a codename), who flies a fighter plane. She was looking to join the kitchen staff herself, if not for the same reason as I was; she seemed nice enough. Kamille was hanging around doing his own work, and eventually Hoshi Hikari found me, the person I'd been assigned to work under; I found out later she's a Kamen Rider, like Tsukasa and a few of the others. I hung around the kitchen for the rest of my assigned shift, though I didn't get a chance to talk to the other Desu pilots while I was down there. They kept me busy!

A few days passed, and there was a sortie, codenamed "Separation ~ Assimilation". Kamille had deployed; I was worried as I normally tend to be while he's out fighting for us, but shortly before he returned I just had this overwhelming feeling of dread. I don't know what caused it, I'm not sure I ever will, but it felt... bad. I rushed down to the hangar to greet him, and found a broken Zeta Gundam and Kamille in a dark mood. Apparently they'd had to leave someone behind to make their escape, and she'd sacrificed herself to make sure the thing they'd been fighting, a stronger version of the Festum, didn't pursue. From the tale he told of the monsters they'd fought, honestly, one sacrifice was a fair price for the safety of the Chalice, and the human race. (I also discovered that Luger had snuck over to the wrecked Zeta and left grafitti on it; I haven't yet showed him what I do to people that insult my important people through me.)

He'd mentioned someone else though, someone that "wasn't all there" after fighting those things. I looked around the hangar and eventually found Mobius One standing next to the wreck of her plane. The combination of what I understand to be attempted Festum assimilation and someone having given herself up to save the team had hit her hard. I tried to console her, to say anything that could help her move past it, but... it was hard, trying to reassure someone that everything would be fine when I'd only gone out for two sorties, and I'd lost something major in each of them. I don't think it worked, and after a little while I left her alone to grieve.

Shortly after that, Seiren contacted Hana and I to let us know that she'd reconstructed the course for her "special" training, which both of us had been sentenced to. We appeared for Seiren's unique brand of torture - you've seen that course, right? I heard a rumor she set it up for April Fool's Day one year as an attraction - and after a few questions to make sure we understood everything, we began. The intial obstacle course was finished surprisingly quickly; Hana and I together managed to clear it without too much difficulty. Similarly, we managed the physical stamina battery quickly, though it was close. The last stage, though... as usual, was combat against Seiren. I'll admit, most of that day is a blur; there's a big section I can only get pieces of, then I have a clear memory of saying something to Seiren as my head hit the floor, and then I came to several hours later in my own room, my entire body screaming.

I spent the next day and a half taking it easy and waiting for the pains to ease to a dull ache; I was feeling mostly better by the time Hana was done with her last day of training. I went to go visit her late that afternoon... and found a blue-haired mummy. There's no better way to describe it. She was wrapped up in bandages over most of her body... it didn't look good. She didn't have much to say, either; she was in too much pain. After a joke from her, I decided it might be a good idea to see about an ice bath to make everything stop aching for a few minutes, and left to go find someone with actual medical authority to approve the idea. A few minutes later I was back in Hana's room and carrying her carefully down the hall toward the bathing area. Along the way, we chatted about a few things; namely, that I was still worried I'd disgusted her or something when she found me with Kamille that one time. She had a similar worry about herself and Eri, and... we came to an understanding. So that's one less worry on my mind.

I returned to my room with wet, rolled-up sleeves, to find Seiren working on her reports. We discussed Hana's training - I still don't know how she survived having to repeat the obstacle course for four hours - and I eventually noticed a date circled on Seiren's calendar. I hadn't realized it was her birthday; I suspect she wouldn't have taken well to most of us trying to do anything for her, but nothing was stopping me from remembering it, at least.

We began preparations to return to space the next day; shortly before we departed, a new pilot came aboard, one Michelle Fournier, and a blue robot called Pandora. I'd found her looking over a large kit of tools, presumably to assure everything was there, and we talked about the virtues of working for a company that wants to ensure everything's in order before you leave, rather than us with our Desu units, where we're trained in maintenance but we don't bring much in the way of specialized parts for repair; and about her employer, and our impending trip to space. We were both excited about it, considering we both came from relatively tame places before this (home in my case; Fairy Park is anything but tame).

The next day after that was Seiren's birthday; apparently Laura had invited her to some sort of function between just the two of them, and I ran into her along the way. I... said something that came out weird, and I think I made Seiren mad. Once we came to an understand of what I actually meant, I left her alone before I made her mood worse.

It was around this time that the Chalice made preparations to meet with key officers of the Federation in the interest of shutting down the Titans once and for all at the Konpei Island facility in space. I was along as part of the escort party to bring one Blex Forer to the tribunal, and eventually we sent him on in a civilian mobile suit to attend; we were invited to watch over a video feed. As Blex began his speech, there was a loud explosion that ripped apart the podium he was standing at... and when the smoke cleared, a Percolatis - a huge bug-like being - was standing in his place. Apparently Blex had been dead this whole time, and the Titans didn't take kindly to the seeming double-cross, declaring us under arrest, and mobilizing mobile suits to fight us when we didn't submit. That kicked off the operation later codenamed "Colliding War Zones" as we deployed to defend ourselves; I launched in Desu Itsuki.

Things started relatively simply. Several top Titans officers were around to see us killed, and we fought back. The highlight was the huge black monstrosity Kamille later identified as the Psyco Gundam, which I attempted to assault with the Gold Forte Burst, the strongest offensive skill available to Desu Itsuki... which it ignored, and promptly punished my trying by damaging the hand holding the Itsuki Tambourine. I'm still not sure how that happened. Combat went on in this way for a little bit longer, until the rules were changed when one Admiral Delaz, formerly of Zeon, now a rogue element, appeared with several ships, out to fight both our own ships and those of the Federation. To that end, he had a trump card: Anavel Gato in his GP-02, thought dead, and still carrying at least one nuclear warhead, up here in space where N-Jammer technology didn't reach. As Delaz ordered the strike, every single Federation vessel took measures to shoot it down... and all failed, as the warhead struck Konpei Island, wiping out most of its personnel in one shot.

I admit, that was not one of my better moments. I just sat there watching. The flash haunted my dreams for weeks; it still does, sometimes. As it cleared, the Titans were as horrified as we were; the fight became an all-out brawl, with us in the middle. There wasn't a whole lot I could do with what I had on the Itsuki; I tried to stick to ranged solutions, but I nearly shot down an allied pilot in my trying to help, and I didn't manage to make any sizable contribution in the later half of the battle. Eventually there was no choice but for us to run, as Paptimus Scirocco appeared with an army of Mobile Dolls to clear everyone out, and our only remaining option was to retreat or die.

My return back to the Chalice was... hurt, angry, confused. I don't really remember most of it, though I do remember Gainer, one of the two professional gamers aboard the ship, trying to reach out to me and figure out what was wrong. Eventually I had to stop talking to him; I got too emotional and I could feel the Itsuki's control slipping away from me. Once I hit the hangar, I took off running back into the Chalice proper, a sobbing mess, and eventually I tripped, and just stayed there in a heap, crying my eyes out. Everyone was so supportive, though... it helped a lot. Hana tried to distract me with the arboretum, Julia reminded me that PreDesu units aren't really built to fight super robots, and I think I made Michelle worry when I mentioned I hadn't trained that long for flying Desu Itsuki, all things considered.

After I calmed down enough to move, I headed for a quiet place I could look out into space; I didn't want to hand around my own room or the arboretum, both Seiren's typical haunts, as I half-expected her to have something to say about my performance. She did not, as I found when she visited me; she was actually concerned after what she'd heard had happened, which made me happy. Mobius One tried to return the favor from after her disastrous fight against the Festum, and Laura reminded me that we were a little outmatched out there... thinking back now, there were a lot of mobile suits out there. And eventually Kamille found me, which I both wanted and dreaded; I felt like I'd let him down. He talked me out of that, though, and when I expressed anger at their so-called Spirit of Zeon, he explained the different between "Zeon" - Delaz's splinter faction - and Axis Zeon, the faction Lady Haman Karn operates, which I didn't know and made me feel somewhat better about being on a ship with Zeon officers. I just took it easy the rest of the evening; I don't remember where I eventually ended up sleeping.

In the following day or two, I had a few loose ends to tie up; one was Werter making a statement about the horrors Zeon had brought to bear against humankind. I talked to him about that for a little bit; it still hadn't hit me that Delaz being a splinter faction meant I just needed to find him, rather than deal with Zeon as a whole. That would make justice quite a bit easier. The other thing was seeing how Char had managed after the fight; he'd had to deal with vacuum exposure, so he'd been rushed to the infirmary as the battle was ending. He awoke the next day, but he'd been fairly disheartened. He mentioned something I hadn't thought of - Lady Karn herself was out there with us at the time the nuke went off. Zeon would be thrown into chaos had she been injured or killed in the blast, let alone in the battle afterward. That... scared me. For that matter, what if they'd shot at the Chalice? All of us... wiped out in an instant. That thought horrified me for some time after I left Char.

My mood improved over the the next few days; the biggest thing that happened was the return of Alexei, who had apparently been in the Wahrheit for the month since I'd seen him last. I'd learned enough from kitchen duty with Hoshi and the others that I could manage a passable meal without help, and so when Alexei expressed he was hungry from spending so long in there, I dragged him to the kitchen to catch him up on the events he'd missed, from around the time Kamille and I became an item to the events with Zeon, the Titans, and Delaz a few days prior. He'd listened to it all as he ate, and seemed to shrug it off as not-unexpected goings-on... though he mentioned he was happy for Kamille and I, which pleased me. I'm still surprised he doesn't hate either of us for... that time.

And then we deployed for a more emergency-based sortie; a group of anti-capital mobile suits were in front of the Chalice and set to ram us during a resupply at a colony, so it was up to us to destroy them, and I launched in Itsuki to protect the ship, in a sortie later designated "DUNE Steps Into the Light". They went down fairly quickly, so there wasn't much issue, even though there was something weird with one of our Gundams; I think the pilot switched out or something, but we only found out when a big crab mecha came from around the colony and grabbed it. In any case, we were able to start taking care of the ambush... and then something appeared. Something that terrified me. Bursting out of the colony came a huge humanoid unit that Eri identified as DUNE. Why he was here, I'll never know, but... the enemy of all PreDesu, sitting in front of us. Even if we were hopelessly outmatched, what choice did we have but to fight?

Hana and Eri, in the Endless units Blanc and Noir, were able to keep up with him, but... I kept getting thrown into the colony we were resupplying from; my back still hurts from all that. Eventually help appeared: a silver PreDesu unit, eventually identified as Desu Tsukikage. The pilot helped us deal with DUNE; but eventually we were being pushed back, and Eri decided enough was enough, and began to unseal the Endless units from the WEARE system that held their power back. The Dual Aurora Wave lit up the wastes of space, and the glory of Blanc and Noir was revealed once more; immediately thereafter, we all joined together for one big attack to try and take DUNE out once and for all. The power of the Extreme Luminario... is astounding to see first-hand. Everything else looked like we were firing popguns compared to its absurd destructive ability. And... we did it, somehow. That was enough to destroy DUNE. I still find it hard to believe, but... we won. The Tsukikage's pilot collapsed right afterward, though, so our celebrating was cut short as we returned to the Chalice.

Eri and Hana handled the transportation of Desu Tsukikage and its pilot, so when I made it back to the hangar, I was free to get out of the Itsuki and... feel happy with my work, for once. Nobody died, and I actually did something! It was such a great feeling...! I set some time aside to talk to POTPOURRI too; I'd been ignoring him lately, and I felt bad about it. While I made peace with my AI, Kamille returned; apparently he'd been out covering other parts of the ship, and without fanfare he got out of the Zeta Gundam, made a declaration of his awesomeness, and kissed me again. Not that I minded at all... but I think I think POTPOURRI was jealous, and as soon as Kamille was out of the way he attached himself to my face. I spent some time trying to pry him off, and Kamille and I talked for a little while, and I told him he was important to me, and he said I was important to him, and... I think we're closer now.

After I got away from Kamille I found Seiren, whom I'd been meaning to look for; we hadn't seen her during the mission, and I was worried. Apparently Desu Ellen had malfunctioned just as she'd tried to launch, and she didn't get it repaired in time. She'd mentioned something about "Infinity", but I didn't ask about it aside from trying to remember what the term meant. I think she said it was the Project's prophet? Something like that... I probably should remember that, but then again, I have nothing against just taking things as they come.

And speaking of new things coming out of the Project, Ciel arrived on the Chalice shortly after that sortie. She doesn't seem to have changed much; still cold to everyone, for sure. I met up with her the evening of her arrival, and I think I managed to make at least some kind of impression on her; I'm starting morning training with her so she can evaluate my skill. I'm not entirely certain what she thinks of me, but I'm going to put everything I have into it. She certainly doesn't think much of... well... Eri or Hana. She knows Seiren well enough, and we all know Katsumi by now. Ciel doesn't think much of me either, but I said enough to make her notice, I think.

After that was a brief visit to Seattle Colony, Julia's home for quite a while, that she'd been away from for a few years now. There was a big crowd waiting for her, which she seemed happy about... but she was thinking about the old days, too. When the Irgelion Empire was seeking to conquer the Earth Sphere. Let alone that now the two of us, former Irgelion citizens ourselves, were serving on a warship dedicated to saving the Earth Sphere. It's... jarring. But I think she enjoyed herself, so I'm happy for her.

That just brings me to the last day or two. A new pilot broadcast a challenge to us; one Maddox Caine. He... seemed fairly crass. Poor language, poor opinions on a lot of things. A day later, he came aboard, and I found myself unimpressed. Alongside the other things, he seems to have an odd dislike for women serving in a combat capacity, which annoyed me. I replied to his video message with what I realize now was a fairly stinging remark, mostly standing up for my gender, which seemed to terrify him, and he disconnected before I could get another word in edgewise.

And last off... Alexei. The League of Ruling Corporations sent us a briefing for a new mission, to destroy the Arms Fort Great Wall. It... looks like a train, but several times larger, much more massive, and with guns and missile turrets everywhere. As soon as the briefing came, Alexei got... weird. He went to load up the Wahrheit with enough ammunition to take down a space colony, with a manic feeling about him. I went to ask him about it... I didn't realize it before, but he's been a LYNX - a pilot for the League's Armored Core NEXTs - for at least ten years now. He served the lost corporation Rayleonard in the LYNX War back then, and scheming by the other corporations, particularly Global Armaments, brought that group down, leaving Alexei the last LYNX of Rayleonard. He bears that title proudly... and it's the reason he's worked for COLLARED this last decade: waiting for a chance at revenge. I'm worried something will happen, but... I trust him not to get in over his head. I'm more worried about the Closed Plan he was going on about, but he doesn't know anything about it either, so I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

I just want to touch on a few more things before I close this report. One, I'm sorry I'm dumping all this on you, Professor, but... I'm used to having someone to talk through my problems with. You were always there to take care of us at Fairy Park, so I guess I got used to telling you everything, and it's how my reports come out. I can change it, but... it'd take some doing, I think, and I'm not sure everything would come across the same way. So I'll keep writing them like this. And also... Eri and Hana are acting kind of weird, I'm hearing. Hana's started putting herself first a bit more than is normal, I think, and Eri's gotten visibly clingy to Hana; Eri doesn't notice the change in Hana, and Hana doesn't seem to notice (or care about) the change in Eri. I'm worried, but... I'll continue to observe and report what I find.

Try not to work too hard, Professor; I know a lot of the active Desu units and pilots are here on the Chalice, and part of our normal duties is training the new pilots, but hopefully they're far enough along that you won't need to work them too hard. I hope we can make it back to visit soon; it's hard to believe it's been three whole months since I've been at the Park. Take care, Professor.

Sora Myoudouin

The pages are stacked in a neat pile on her desk, with an addressed envelope sitting next to the stack. A somewhat worn pen rests atop a clipboard next to them. Sora herself seems to be taking a nap, murmuring something you can't catch; there's a small smile on her lips, and she looks peaceful.]

===
Activity list:
- 5 in How Does That Make You Feel? with the PreDesu team and Tsukasa
- Shine 6 | Four Hearts ~ Realizations, and 11 in threads with Mobius One, Kamille, Hoshi, and Julia
- 4 in the unnamed Kamille post after Separation ~ Assimilation
- 6 in An Ace's... Nevermind with Mobius One
- 13 in Seventh Note | The Part Where She Kills Them with Hana and Seiren
- 11 in 22nd Bloom with Hana
- 7 in Eighth Note | A Date on a Calendar with Seiren
- 7 in First gift with Michelle
- 4 in Ninth Note | Birthdays with Seiren
! Mission: Colliding War Zones
- Shine 7 | With the Stars as Witness, and 42 tags with Hana, Julia, Michelle, Laura, Mobius One, Kamille, Gainer, and Seiren
- 5 in Discovery #23 with Werter
- 4 in the unnamed Char post after Colliding War Zones
- 7 in Where's Alexei? with Alexei
! Mission: DUNE Steps Into the Light
- Shine 8 | And Be of Good Cheer, and 10 with Kamille
- 3 in Tenth Note | DUNE with Seiren
- 4 in Signs of Snow with Ciel
- 3 in Seventeenth Light with Julia
- 2 in Because he's a Hero / Infinite Pride with Mad
- 6 in Third Briefing with Alexei
...with two missions and three posts, I'm not going to bother counting tags, Sora passes.

[The following letter can be found on Sora's desk, with a small black book open next to it to show what appears to be a summary of events and interactions. Feel free to review both, though she'll be angry, bordering on indignant if you're found with the book. ((This letter is IC; there's a standard, AC-friendly list of activity below it.))]

Professor Himesaki,

I hope the last month has treated you well; frankly, I'm very tired, after everything that's happened. I'd thought we'd have another relatively easy week or two, and I took some time relaxing on the deck to get some sun... but it wasn't to be. Adventus attacked the White Chalice in force; they brought a monstrosity capable of disabling non-magical engines, and got one of their officers inside, orchestrating a kidnapping that took nearly two dozen pilots, including Eri. I was present for the attempt to repel the boarder, but was overpowered; the invader brought along automatons with stunning electric shocks at close range, rendering a large part of my combat ability useless, and a pilot was taken away from literally right in front of me. The boarder escaped, though not unharmed. I believe the attack was targeted on the Chalice itself, rather than any particular pilot or person aboard, with the possible exception of the captain.

After that travesty of a sortie, I was... disappointed in myself, to say the least, and collapsed somewhere to vent my frustrations. Nanohana... well, she's due to send you her own report, so I won't comment on her actions, but she was in a bad mental state after the battle, and... I think I broke her, just a bit. It wouldn't have been the first time. But I'm sincerely hoping she can grow through the trials she faces, with her fellow pilots at her side. But, I'm getting sidetracked. Aside from Nanohana, I was visited by Kamille again; aside from concern for my well-being - I was not particularly discrete that day, I admit - he was also concerned about one Char Aznable's actions. You may have seen, or at least heard about, his rallying Neo Zeon to war against Adventus, immediately after the kidnapping; Kamille was quite concerned this would escalate into all-out war against the Earth Sphere, with Axis set to arrive in the next month. I'm frankly concerned that we're going to be in over our heads in short order, but that's not in the scope of this report.

The catalyst that started our rescue operation in earnest, however, was a conversation with COFFRET, left behind in Eri's capture. Between the two of us, we determined we could use COFFRET's ability to sense his partner as a sort of radar - establish a path to use as a sensor sweep, and once the AI found Eri, we had a defined area to search with relative certainty of finding the captives. This plan was presented to White Chalice command and approved in short order, to our relief.

...And then Seiren arrived. I know I requested assistance, but I'm starting to wonder if that was the right idea. While I won't deny she's a strong pilot, her manner is causing friction among the team, and I'm not sure how to handle it. Seiren and Hana are constantly at odds, the former scolding the latter for her inexperience and failure, the latter unable to deny anything and slipping further into self-doubt. Of all people, Kamille is becoming part of the problem, too; I appear to have said too much regarding my honored superior to him, and he confronted her shortly after her arrival. The two argued, and eventually assigned me to be a judge of sorts in a duel to determine which of them was the stronger. Seiren demonstrated Desu Ellen's excellent ranged multi-targeting ability just before Nanohana appeared, beyond all expectations, and implored the two to stop; while I was able to calm her down, Kamille broke down to Seiren when he thought we couldn't hear him. He's... got a lot of insecurities, most of which are from before my time, some of which are from before the Chalice started its mission. Regardless, that set off Seiren, who also revealed a number of her own issues. My opinion of Seiren certainly went up a few points that day; if I'd known even half of her story before, I wouldn't have been so hard on her. Kamille collapsed shortly after, and Nanohana and I took him to the infirmary.

Some time passed; as I calmed down from the initial events of the kidnapping, I trained myself to be more useful when the rescues came, and when the Divine Crusaders informed us the base had been located, I defended the Chalice from attack. While I did not fight any of Adventus' vaunted generals, I take pride in having at least done something. All of the captives were rescued, including Eri, but two of Adventus' generals were killed in the fighting. While it is acceptable to destroy enemies in war, I wish we hadn't had to.

Shortly after returning, Eri organized a meeting of the Desu pilots; this turned out to be dance practice, as we haven't really trained as a team. I'd forgotten about our dancing being training for piloting as well as for our performances; while I got back into the swing of things easily enough, I'm not sure we're exactly ready for team operations. I've continued to practice alone, when I've had the time.

It was after one of these practice sessions that I came across Nanohana... ah, I'll just call her Hana from now on. It's a habit I've gotten into, and she seems to prefer it. In any event, I found Hana in the arboretum, caring for the flowers. She reminds me a lot of you, Professor, if a bit rough around the edges; then again, she picked up her habits from you, so that's to be expected, I suppose. I think I scared her, when I arrived; she may resent me for suddenly arriving and being a better pilot than her without apparent effort, and I feel bad about that. We're all on the same team, we need to be able to work together, and I hate that I'm driving a wedge into things; it's something I'm working on.

Anyway, I commented that I wanted to help with something, and Hana suggested I help her with the flowers; I inadvertently commented I'd taken care of flowers before - back at the dojo, I was the person in charge of the grounds, which is probably why Apple and Pine had disapproving looks on their faces when they first arrived; I was depressed when the sunflowers I'd been taking care of withered - and she seemed to shrink into herself. I told her I wasn't great at gardening, and would love to learn from her; I was so relieved when she smiled again after that. I then found out the hard way her love of flowers; she gave me a truly staggering amount of information about the various blooms in the arboretum, and I ended up telling her about my past, before I came to Fairy Park. I think it surprised her, both what I'd been hiding and how easily I was living with it, but I believe we're closer now. And I'm thankful for that, honestly. We can use all the help we can get.

A day or two later, something else caught my attention: Julia, one of the other pilots, was teaching Irgelion to anyone interested. I'd already known that Julia was one of my old friends from Irgel, Reilev, but I hadn't had a chance to talk to her yet; this just confirmed it. We joked for a bit about Alessandra's accusation that I was Irgelion when I'd first arrived, but she was still down about her inability to save Bertrand Herrera in a past battle; I wasn't sure what to say to that.

...And then things went totally downhill. I saw a broadcast from Haruka, that she was planning to leave when the business with Adventus was over, which was to be rather soon; on my way to go talk to her, I found her talking to Hana... or rather, caught the tail end of the conversation, which ended with Haruka slamming a fist into Hana's gut before returning to her room. After gathering some information, I helped Hana back to her room; shortly after that, I found Kamille unresponsive near the kitchen. A slap, which I regret, was enough to get him responsive again, but I found out he'd tried to confront Haruka... and failed. He's developing a complex about only being good at killing our enemies, and I wasn't sure how to respond to him... which ended up becoming moot as Alexei, LYNX formerly of Rayleonard, walked over to try and confront Kamille.

That ended up being a mistake; Kamille snapped worse, coming to the end of his rope, and before I knew it, I had a slight headache, and Alexei was collapsed against a wall, bleeding from... everywhere. I panicked, and... I could only come up with one option to bring Kamille back, and as much as it felt right to me, I still wonder how I thought it would do anything. I ran over to him and hugged him, told him we were here, that I was here for him. That was enough to get him calmed down almost immediately, and the pressure on my head stopped right away, replaced by a warm feeling I still remember now. That moment didn't last, though, as Julia came from out of a side hallway and found Alexei, then blamed us for it... Julia took him to the infirmary, leaving Kamille and I behind. He'd explained to me that he had an ability that, at the end of the day, is somewhat similar to the AIs in our Desu units: powerful emotions radiate out from him, and people with high sensitivity to such things can be in danger. I made a note to go visit Alexei once he'd had some time to settle in.

That visit was both more and less eventful than expected. I found him with a thick cable coming out of his head, connected to a laptop. That laptop was itself connected to his mecha, designated the Wahrheit. Its own intelligence reported that Kamille's overload hadn't just injured Alexei; it'd killed him outright. That still scares me; what's to prevent it from happening again? Or to me? But... I can't help anyone if I'm too afraid of what might happen to try. Anyway, the Wahrheit also noted that Alexei would be restored in about seventeen and a half hours. How he's coming back from death, even I'm not sure, but I don't want to know, I don't think. Kamille found me as I was about to leave; he'd already talked to Alexei, who was able to push his consciousness into the laptop somehow, and told Kamille he wasn't to blame. I tried to reassure him some more about his role on the ship... but I think my emotions are overriding my good sense, which should probably bother me more than it does. That, I'll summarize later.

I returned after about eighteen hours to find that, indeed, the Wahrheit's efforts were successful, and Alexei was watching a feed from the current battle, code-named "ELIMINATION", in which the Chalice's fighters were taking on the last of Adventus' generals before bringing their attack to the base proper. Alexei waved aside my apologies for his condition, reminding me that as bad as I felt about letting him die in front of me, I still managed to help Kamille get himself together, and that was worth it, he'd said. I don't agree myself, but who am I to argue about killing a man, with the man I killed through my inaction? We watched the rest of the battle, myself worried out of my mind as Kamille and the other ran about the battlefield and were nearly killed several times. But at the end, the final blow was struck, and some time thereafter, Kamille returned; I think I about tackled him in my relief. Kamille and Alexei talked about the NEXT pilot's "death", and about the fact that Reilev is going to be a problem to deal with at some point, while I took a moment to get a hold of myself. We were all interrupted, however, by a voice coming from Alexei's laptop, something about wanting to hit something with his golf clubs. That voice was coming from the Captain, and Alexei, followed by Kamille, immediately charged out of the room to join in the fighted; I start to follow, but I tripped on a cable and smashed my head into the infirmary wall, apparently knocking me out, as there's a hole in my memory for the next hour or so.

Upon my return to consciousness, I left the infirmary and thought I saw Seiren headed down the halls to the hangar; having been a wreck and wanting to change, I returned to my room rather than following her. But after a little while, I heard faint music coming from the hangar, and went to investigate. I found Seiren at the source, holding a music box with a haunting melody, which she treated almost with reverence. She explained it to me when I asked, both the tale of the melody, and how she'd gotten the music box itself; I hadn't known her past up to now, and I regret that. Maybe if we'd been closer, if I'd made more of an effort instead of just being scared of her, we wouldn't be having problems now. But instead, when she wrapped up her story and I tried to reach out to her, she shut me out, hard, told me I couldn't handle her pain. I... I admit it, I froze up. I've never been denied quite like that before, and I just left before I could say something to make it worse.

Expecting to have limited free time, I started work on this letter about a week ago; aside from that, however, I looked through my things and discovered my old uniform, and elected to wear it and see how it fit. Aside from still fitting just fine, I also found it changed perceptions of myself just a bit; perhaps more interestingly, I additionally discovered Kamille has a job on the Nirvana, Dita's all-female starship, and wears a maid costume as his uniform... which disturbs me a little. I also chatted with Werter about the importance of school in a post-Impact world, and with Laura about my past, and what that uniform means to me... and about the fact that I still regret not being able to save Fate, weeks ago. That's been eating at me, and I think it's affected my desire to pilot. If I can't protect a girl standing right in front of me, how can I expect to protect anyone in a huge construct? I... think I'm getting better, though.

A couple of days passed. The ship was finally calming down from the fight with Adventus, and the... surprising non-issue thereafter. No major parties, just a few mellow incidents. Perhaps everyone was contemplating the destruction and death we'd had to purchase this victory with. In any case, one of the most notable incidents was that Haruka, former iDOL pilot before her unit Imber was stolen, announced and then followed through on leaving the Chalice to return home to her grandfather. Shortly after her departure, her colleague Miki announced that Imber was to be destroyed when next encountered. This was met with almost universal disapproval, ranging from arguments to outright shouting matches to physical contact. Among those getting into shouting matches was Hana, whom I later found on the deck, depressed; a collection of bandages and bruises on her face, and her gripping her stomach again, really made it hit home how much abuse she's been taking from the other pilots since she got here, and I felt bad... though from what I'd heard, I had little sympathy for her, and as she told her story I had even less.

But I'd severely underestimated the other pilots' capacity for hazing and demoralization, as she just gave up on trying to defend herself, offered barbs for me to use. I wanted, so much, to be angry at her, to say something about her lack of tact or foresight, to scream at her for this happening again and again. But... I can't. Everyone's been breaking her will in turns, I'm not going to do it. If we all push her until she breaks, eventually we won't be able to put her together again, and she'll do the same thing Haruka's done: leave, and never come back, living as a shell of her former self. I will not let that happen, no matter what. If I have to stand before Seiren, before the entire Chalice... I'll protect her. I was too late to help Haruka, to help everyone before I arrived. I'm not going to let the people being hurt in front of me suffer.

I tried to reassure Hana, that she was important to us, that we needed her on the team. I think that was what she needed to hear; she hugged me, and finally smiled again. I feel bad that I have to keep doing this, that she's got such low self-esteem, but... if it's what needs to be done, I'll do it every time. It still doesn't sit well with me, though... All my depression kinda grew on me, and I spent about a day or two just being generally in a poor mood. I still went out for my activities, but... I wasn't happy. I think I was a little too obvious, though; I worried Hana a bit, and Eri had to distract me with work, though I'm not certain she noticed, or if she did, she didn't call me on it. Kamille found me, too, and I had a bit of a chat with him, and I started to let out some of my insecurities... and then Seiren found us, with criticism of how we were letting Hana get away with failure, and comments on my insecurities I'd just mentioned to Kamille.

Both of us immediately bristled at the digs to Hana; I was willing to entertain her advice regarding myself, but I think I misheard her, thinking she was telling me to throw away myself, to become a pilot like her. I don't want that, I never will. I became a pilot to leave that life, of being a shell driving through life without meaning. I lost control of myself, became depressed, and eventually she... set me straight. I'm not going to complain about her actions there, but I think I needed some sense driven into me. I'll need some time, but sooner or later, I'll make her accept me. I won't give up until she accepts me as a pilot. As for Hana, we agreed that we need to coddle her a little less... I'm hoping she can stay strong until Seiren feels she's gotten the message.

That leaves the topic I wanted to report last: Kamille. Over the course of working with him through several incidents, I've noticed... something. I'm not sure what it is, entirely. After the incident with Alexei, when I comforted him... I've never felt anything like what I felt then. I don't mean to sound like a trashy romance novel character, but maybe I'm beginning to feel something for him? We've gotten into a number of situations together, and he's becoming comfortable with my presence, so we'll see what happens. I absolutely don't want to become one of those clingy female love interests in popular media; I despise that image. But... we'll see.

I ordinarily would discuss Seiren's conduct, but aside from her treatment of Hana, which she's justified to Kamille and myself already, I cannot argue with the results. She's strong, and she can take command of a situation with surprising ease. I'm quickly remembering why she's got seniority over myself, who couldn't command her way out of an open hangar door; my charisma is great for solving problems amongst pilots, but Seiren is better at giving orders. I'll be the first to admit that.

I'm departing on an off-ship journey for a while, so I wanted to get this sent before I left; Dita is taking myself, Hana, and possibly others on a quest of self-discovery she claims to have gone on before. Considering the empathic sense she seems to have and swears she didn't have before that, I'm inclined to believe her. While my own issues aren't particularly pronounced, I'll gladly take the chance to evaluate and deal with everything before things worsen.

I hope all is well at Fairy Park. Ideally the trainees aren't being too much of a hassle, now that Seiren and I are gone, and business should pick up now that one of the major threats to the world is defeated. I don't necessarily want to request additional help, particular with the stir Seiren's arrival caused, but... we're always in need of more pilots to keep our ship safe. If someone needs combat experience, or just wants something to shoot, there's no better place on Earth. Be safe, Professor.

Sora Myoudouin

[The letter is neatly stacked up, with an envelope addressed to the Professor sitting next to it, and a pen next to that. She intends to mail it just before she leaves, but with all the chaos normally inherent to the Chalice, who knows if that happened...]

===
Activity list:
- 6 in Slow day with Njall
- Mission: DOWNFALL (on inside route)
- Shine 2 | I can't do anything...! (+5), and threads with Hana, Kamille, and COFFRET [Eri] for a total of 16
- 4 in First Note | The Ace Appears with Seiren, and 18 with Kamille, Seiren, and Hana
- 4 in H@ppy Together - Dancing 101 with Eri
- 13 in 15th Bloom with Hana
- 6 in Fifteenth Light with Julia
- 9 in A Penguin's Sadness with Hana, and 8 with Kamille, Alexei, and Julia
- 6 in Psychic whiplash with Wahrheit [Alexei] and Kamille, and 6 with Alexei and Kamille
- 5 in Third Note | The Music Box with Seiren
- Shine 3 | Calm Before the Storm (+5), and threads with Kamille, Werter, and Laura for a total of 17
- 9 in 16th Bloom with Hana (future-dated)
- Shine 4 | Insecurities (+5), and threads with Hana, Eri, and Kamille (plus Seiren) in progress for at least 16
- 7 in Walkabout with Dita
...for a total of... 149 and counting? TAGS FOR THE TAG GOD! DRAMA FOR THE DRAMALLAMA!