Always darkest before pitch black

[empress_without_a_throne]

[1]

[When she awakes, Mizuki finds herself no longer in the DuskBird and the battle is long since ended.  The second battle with SolEraser, and her desperate, last attempt at taking the machine down... it's still fresh in her mind.  But she's in the infirmary, bandaged and with whatever deep see-based medicines the Unity Group had on-hand in case they were needed.  She felt... weary.]

What happened out there?

[And it's then that the medical staff gets to break the news to her.  About just what happened to SolSavior and the power it had unleashed.]



-But if I'd done that much to SolSavior itself, then...

Oh God!

[2]



[And some time later, Mizuki is just, lying in a sobbing heap nearby Ken and Dido's beds.  It was the SolBalmung incident all over again... there was just a hard limit to how much Void energy a human being can be exposed to and Ken and Dido had skirted dangerously close to it.  She had done this.  She had brought forth all the power of the Abyss Empress to bring down on the Eraser team, but it was her own friends and comrades that'd paid the price for it.  SolSavior itself lay wrecked even more than before, and this too was her doing.  And even if her body was in better shape now, her mind...]

Stop it...

[It's barely above a whisper.]

Stop congratulating me... all of you!  I'm not Marianas!  I'm not here to cause suffering!  I didn't want... I never wanted any of this!

Comments

[empress_without_a_throne]

They'd... obviously have to look into that sort of thing of course.

[Although considering Solaris's history with making add-ons and the like for their machines...]

I just don't want to have to repeat that, make the same kind of sacrifice and gamble with Ken and Dido's lives to protect people.

[a_louse]

Then do everything you can to make sure it won't happen again. It's easy to say and hard to do... But you have a whole bunch of people supporting you, not to mention your own strength. I'm sure you can find a way.

I don't want to see Ken and Dido gone, either. I quite like them.

[empress_without_a_throne]

Same here...

[She looks down at her hands, before raising one up so she can rest her head on it.]

I don't even know how to start though. Or where. Too many ideas... and I don't know how valid any of them could be.

[Alter her powers? Try to help Ken and Dido handle the strain of the Void energy? Find some way to safely expel it? Just sitting in her bed and with doctors, not scientists, on-hand didn't give her many options.]

[a_louse]

Care to share some of them?