Oriko Mikuni

player.
NAME/HANDLE: Guessy
PERSONAL JOURNAL: rickroading
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: guessy
OTHER CHARACTERS: none


character.
CHARACTER NAME: Oriko Mikuni
SERIES: Puella Magi Oriko Magica
CANON POINT: Post-series
AGE: 14-16, presumably
APPEARANCE: Here (Oriko is the one in white)

PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: None

PERSONALITY: Raised as a politician's daughter, only to be dragged down with him when he fell from grace, she made a wish of understanding to become a Puella Magi, and thus gained the power of Precognition. With it, she forsaw the destruction of her world at the hands of Kriemhild Gretchen - the Witch form of Madoka Kaname - and acted to prevent it, by means of assassination. She is, in fact, the villain of her own manga.

There are a number of tenets to Oriko's personality.

The first is appearance; with her father a congressman, as his daughter she had to appear refined and well-raised. She went into this willingly; understanding that her actions would reflect on him and thus affect his status. Oriko Mikuni was a reflection of Congressman Mikuni; this was how she saw herself. It was her responsibility to act in a respectable manner.

The second is her sense of morals. As part package with the above, she strove to be as 'good' a person as possible. She believed that she and her father were working to save the world; to improve it and make it better. This fed into her idealisation of her father; by helping her father, she was helping the world. It is for this reason, she drove herself to excel; attending the prestigious Shirome school in Mitakihara and making her way to the position of student council president.

The third is her sense of scale. As a politician, Congressman Mikuni oversaw considerable large scale projects Oriko strove to understand, to better present him better. She understood the checks and balances that went into creating the 'best scenario possible' with the resources available. In a way, she saw herself and everyone around her as responsible for each other; when she acted, it was always with others in mind. An inescapable consequence of this mindset is her ability to disconnect emotionally and treat everyone - even herself - as pawns to be moved on the board; with the goal of saving as many as possible, yes, but as pawns none the less.

The fourth is her detachment and intelligence. Oriko has, all her life, striven to build herself; in short, she is an expert in manipulating herself and her personality to suit her goals. Her intelligence speaks for itself, with her education and being top of her class. Political and economic theory similarly are topics she has studied extensively. In a way, she sees herself somewhat as a machine, a tool she can use to her own ends. She can and will put her own emotional needs aside for the good of the many... or will try to. Ultimately, she cannot suppress herself as well as she wants to, and the stress can and does get to her and degrade her sanity.

Bluntly put, she's too rational and, in a way, idealistic (or naive) regarding the human psyche. She assumes everyone works to the common good, or would if well informed. Because of her upbringing, she was sheltered, always existing in rigid social environments. She essentially sees society as a machine, in which everyone plays their role and does their best to 'make good' or survive. People acting irrationally (ie love, hate or just plain stupidity) will catch her off guard. She was only ever seen as treated as 'Mikuni's Daughter' because that is how she presented herself and what she strove to be. Corruption, she knew, existed, but was merely a sign of a flawed system their job as politicians was to improve. In short, she was - and in a way still is - the sort of person who honestly believes perfection is attainable, and holds her ideals - particularly her desire to save the world - above all else. An individual's love or hatred can be put aside for the sake of the greater good... in theory. In practise of course that never actually happens, which is where Oriko starts making mistakes.

Given Oriko was seen as an extension of her father, when his corruption came to light her own reputation was equally destroyed. Scorned and distrusted, she became a shut-in, believing herself betrayed by the world but unable to understand why. She would, most likely, have died alone in her house had she not been contacted by Kyubey.

Up until this point, Oriko had essentially been acting on instinct. Striving to best represent her father was a natural consequence of her upbringing; she was never completely consciously aware of it, especially when she was younger. It was the wish she made as her contract with Kyubey that truly changed her.

"Everyone could only think of me as my father... If I'm only a part of my father, then why am I alive? I wish to understand the meaning of my life!"

Through her wish, Oriko gained two key things; firstly, as she wished, an understanding of the meaning of her life; of her own personality and what she was capable of, and secondly, the power of Precognition. As a Puella Magi, she had the ability to make good on her desire to save as many lives as possible, and with her civilian life destroyed, she was free to cast it aside, diving into her role as a Puella completely.

Her precognition meant she was entirely aware of the fate awaiting all Puella Magi; either die or fall to despair and become a Witch. She accepted this; fighting to save people from Witches was still better than nothing, and she was astute enough to realise in the long term Puella Magi would still be needed to keep the Witch population down. It also granted her the vision of Kriemhild Gretchen - the witch form of Madoka Kaname - destroying Mitakihara and then the world. It was from this Oriko found her new goal in life:

Kill Kaname Madoka, and so save the world.

Of course, Madoka having such powerful potential the Incubators would not ignore her; persuading against her contracting would be impossible as the Incubators would always find a way to force her into becoming a Magical Girl (specifically, Walpurgisnacht). Equally, she was protected by Akemi Homura, the time traveller responsible for her insane levels of potential; resetting time again and again in an attempt to save her life. To bypass this and successfully assassinate Kaname, she would need to distract them long enough to make her attempt.

Somewhere in this post-wish, pre-series period, she met Kirika Kure, a fellow Puella Magi with the power to slow time who quickly became her closest confident and only friend. Kirika is what really exposes the contradictions in Oriko's personality; Kirika is quite insane; utterly obsessed and loyal to Oriko. On one hand, Oriko used this, using Kirika as part of her plan to distract Kyubey and her fellow Puella Magi by sending her out to kill Magical Girls (something she jumped to without a moment's hesitation). On the other, Oriko still fell in love with her, coming to value her greatly even as she used her. Being her only confident, she also used her as something of a moral springboard, but given Kirika's state of mind was 'anything Oriko does is perfect' it instead resulted in something of a feedback loop.

Oriko is the kind of person who can turn everything she has towards her goal, sacrifice anything for her ideals and act with complete moral certainty... but at the same time, she is still a human being. Any positive event is just another tool to be used. Any setback is a personal failing she should have accounted for and must be prepared to face the next time. In attempting to rationalise and detach herself emotionally from her actions, she is actually destroying herself under the stress of her own perfectionist personality. Oriko is actually her own greatest enemy. She tries to be perfect, but in reality she is a lonely girl with the world on her shoulders; it's this disconnect between the real Oriko and her ideal that makes her finally snap, and go beyond simply killing Madoka; abandoning her morals completely and killing anyone that stood in her way.

If it could save the world, it would be justified, was her way of reasoning.

Her initial plan actually involved recruiting Mami, but this derailed when she unintentionally offended Kirika who in turn - because Oriko had sent her off killing magical girls, was quite happy responding to 'insults' with lethal force - attacked and tried to kill her. Mami however was the victor; Oriko was able to bail Kirika out, but she was wounded in the process, her soul gem itself damaged. With her only friend dying because of her, Oriko made her final gambit; attacking Madoka's school. Kirika, with her ability, used her Witch transformation to her advantage; forming a Labyrinth that trapped everyone inside before her own, slowed, transformation was completed. The plan was horrifically simple; the survive the other Magical Girls and either assassinate Madoka themselves or let the familiars do it, as they devoured everyone trapped inside.

Causalities, as a consequence of her actions, were high.

Ultimately, she was unable to succeed in fighting off the other magical girls, but was still able to kill Madoka in her dying moments with a piece of Kirika's deceased Witch form. She dies by taking a spear that would have hit Kirika's corpse, even though she knew it would be a pointless action. She actually was able to save her world, though Homura promptly abandoned the timeline to continue fighting. The last we see of Oriko is some kind of afterlife, where she is unable to move because the weight of those she'd killed was too much. Kirika then appears, offering to take half of it.

ABILITIES: As noted in her personality section, Oriko has the power of Precognition and seeing visions of the future. Where I've played her elsewhere I'd generally just locked that power for the obvious problems it puts forward, but it might be interesting if she had some forewarning of future events in the game. We could work something out, or just have her Precognition locked, either works.

Oriko is a Puella Magi, which entails a number of things; first and foremost her soul is not tied to her body, it is contained within her Soul Gem. Her physical body is just a puppet. If the two are separated by over 100 metres, it will fall dead and even begin to decompose until the Gem is returned to it.

Her Soul Gem is also a means to manipulate magic. All Puella can summon a tool or weapon to fight with; in Oriko's case can create ornate metal spheres under her telekinetic control; they can be used defensively to intercept attacks, or fired offensively like cannonballs.

Secondly, again like all Puella, she can summon a costume - the one in the image I linked of her appearance - which replaces whatever she is wearing at the time until desummoned. All Puella also seem to have some level of ability to change objects with their magic (ie Mami enchanting chains and a bat in the first two episodes, Kyoko enchanting a pair of binoculars in episode 5 and so on); it is not clear what the limits are on this exactly, but it seems to be an ability learned by experienced magical girls. Puella magic seems to be mostly intuitive on that regard.

Finally, all of a Puella's magic has a cost; any power spent results in corruption forming in their Soul Gem. A Grief Seed collected from a dead witch can be used to cleanse it, but these are obviously rare, and acquiring them requires putting oneself in danger. Thus, they are forced to use it sparingly; as Oriko is entirely aware, if their gems become too corrupted, they will themselves shattered and transform into grief seeds; every Witch was originally spawned from a Puella Magi. It is worth noting that the corruption in a soul gem and the Puella's mental state are closely linked; if a Puella falls into despair and starts cursing the world, their gem will become corrupted, and vice versa (ie using a lot of magical energy will affect their sanity). By the inverse, cleansing the corruption in their gems will literally make them happier / more hopeful for the future. It doesn't affect their personality, just their mood, for example, Kyoko Sakura harvests grief seeds very pragmatically and has a very clean gem as a result, but is still incredibly cynical.

POSSESSIONS: Soul gem aside, none.


samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE: Discussing motives and Puella with Mami @ Drama Drama Duck

THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
(recycled from her dramadramaduck application)

What were the duties of a Magical Girl?

To spread hope, dreams and shine a light to sear away despair. To save the world.

What were the duties of a Puella Magi?

...Different.

She knew it, probably better than anyone. She had as soon as she made her contract, the first pulse of her power showing her all the answers, as she'd known it would.

"I wish to understand the meaning of my life!"

The duty of a Puella Magi was to fall. If a Magical Girl could die for the world, a Puella Magi would die for the universe. To break, shatter and fall into despair that the universe could keep on going that little bit longer. She held no anger or bitterness. It wouldn't have achieved very much.

She understood that; she accepted that. If that was her fate, so be it. There was always a way around that; her father had shown her as much. All things considered, it would be no bad thing for Oriko Mikuni to fade out from the rational world and enter that of the Puella Magi.

But that girl...

That girl, who never seemed to want for anything, that bizarre anomaly bursting with enough power to crack this world in half... that girl who had nothing to wish for but would contract all the same...

That, right there, was a fool.

She pitied her, if she was honest. Such a naive child wouldn't stand a chance against the Incubators, and given her potential, there was no way they'd let her pass them by. Even her protector, for all her attempts, would not be able to save her. Such a sweet little thing; there was no way she could have wanted any of this. Her plan, such as it was, would almost be a mercy to the poor girl.

Madoka Kaname was doomed to make a contract, and so end the world.

As a duty, she would prevent that.

You have reached Oriko Mikuni; I will reply as soon as I am able.