ooc → canon updating ☆

History:

Last we checked on Mikale, he was living with the Tamura-Yumeno family in the town of Willowing. This was a very big deal for Mikale. While he still loved the Godono family, he was now beginning to realize how his life with them had been bad for his confidence. Charlotta and Yui helped him to build up his confidence and showed him what positive adult role models were like.

Then he lost them. Following Shugo's death, Usao Tamura finally caved in to her psychopathic magic consequences and murdered her mothers. Satou and Mikale were forced to leave Willowing and were being pursued by the MASQ, an order given by Vinita Godono herself.

For the next six months, Mikale and Satou live day to day lifestyles. Mikale was able to provide them with temporarily housing and consistent food due to both his savings account and connections. He decided to confront his elder sister, Franziscka, about the whereabouts of Satou's younger sister. She gave in, respecting Satou for the positive change she had brought about for Mikale, and was then murdered by Richard Godono when the pair left. Richard and Renae, the remaining Godono siblings, attempted to drag Mikale back to them and were unsuccessful.

Their efforts only served to push Mikale to realize that he loved Satou Kuroneko so much that she was now the most important person in the world to him. This changed the price of his magic, thus allowing Mikale to finally recognize Satou as Samantha and fall even more in love with her. Satou seemed to latch onto this affection, giving Mikale the impression that they were in the stages before dating. The pair agreed to deal with gushy icky romance after they got the game of fates underwraps.

Things began to escalate very quickly. Satou found Masume, only to have Masume killed. She confronted her mother and had to put Horie to rest. Mikale assisted her in all of this and was her primary source of comfort. Shugo Yumeno made a reappearance and tied their fates into a bigger and messier knot as he revealed Masume to be a fake human and helped her be reconstructed. The sisters and Shugo went off to deal with Usao, which was just another tally added to the death count.

Death death suffering death.

Mikale followed Satou through all of it, with perfect confidence that he would get her through her trials and they would earn a happily ever after. So it came as quite a shock to him when Satou herself ripped that perfect happy ending away. When she finally had to end Fate and Vinita's fight once and for all, Satou did it by erasing magic from history. This meant that Satou was never and would never be born.

So excuse Mikale if he was devastated!!! Satou was a jerk too and gave him the promised gushy icky romance answer he had been waiting for, admitting that she probably did love him most of all but... ye know how that hardly matters when she's deadish. Despite Mikale's pleas to somehow disappear with her in a romantic puff of shoujo manga, she ditched him in the new world and made him promise to forget about her.

Mikale was a lying jerk. He couldn't forget her, even when the new world turned out to be a good world. Mikale 'woke up' after 'reliving' his new life in what felt like a dream. His mother and him had no magic and didn't recover from abuse as quickly anymore, but it wasn't that that saved them. Mikale remembered asking for help on the day when he would have otherwise met Samantha. His father was arrested and Mikale now had the strength to help his mother get on without her abusive husband.

In his new life, Mikale excelled at school. He was invited to a conference for gifted young adults from around the world when he was fourteen years old, around the time he had met Touka Takamachi and Masume Sakura in the original timeline. They were both invited to the same conference, allowing Mikale to make connections with the people magic had once brought him close to. Mikale eventually went to a Japanese high school to study abroad, and by the time he was seventeen (when he 'woke up') he had started attending school with Masume, Touka, Ryuu, Holly, and even a sane Usao. Mikale lives a more confident life and makes many friends, and gets to have the childhood that his magical adventures robbed him of.

However, that does not mean that Mikale is completely happy. He continues to hold onto his memories of Satou and his magical life, just as her other close friends do. Though Mikale does get very popular at school, he never considers dating and talks of Satou like she's his Canadian Girlfriend. He admits that he never got over her and that he doesn't plan to. Mikale copes with losing her by writing letters to her and keeping him in a dresser drawer. Mysteriously, the letters always disappear by the time he opens the drawer next.

Personality:

Mikale has now lost his two greatest sources of strength and comfort. The magic that made him feel strong enough to defeat his fate is the most obvious thing that he has lost. In the original timeline, it was magic that saved Mikale from his abusive father. It was because of magic that his life was able to turn around for the better, whereas before he struggled and made no real difference without it. So it might seem logical to think that a Mikale without magic would be a hopeless case who goes back to not believing in himself.

Luckily for us all, Mikale has also benefited from magic in ways that last without it. By the end of the series he was beginning to understand that his magic was a representation of his actual potential. He may not be able to make things happen as quickly without it, but he understands that the things he did without magic are not impossible for him to accomplish without it.

He has also benefited immensely from the simple memory of the life he once lived, memories that he still retains. Mikale remembers the experiences that led to him building up confidence and he didn't lose the confidence those now now-erased experiences taught him. It helps that he remembers those events, since otherwise he might have taken steps backward.

His confidence continues to grow, but it's important to note that Mikale is always going to be somewhat timid and shy. It is still easy to fluster him and he still gets unnerved by overly energetic people. However, he is much better at dealing with it now. It takes a lot more to fluster him into silence or get him simply Nope out of a conversation.

And this is thanks to Satou, the second thing missing from his life. Satou only exists in the memories of her close friends now. Mikale and her separated with a promise that he was going to get over her, but he has chosen to break his promise. This is an obvious flaw in his mindset. Mikale will never replace Satou as his most important person and is very determined not to let anyone compete with her in his heart. If he feels that someone is getting too close to him then he'll just push them back. Up until that point of affection he is very kind and generous with others, but once they start getting too close he will begin putting safe distance between them.
Because of this he has lost some of the friendliness that Satou was trying to nurture in him. He is not completely anti-social, but his classmates do notice how he can be a very distant person. Mikale will not open up to other people about his issues (and boy, does he have them,) but can be taught mumbling to "thin air" about his problems.

It is arguable that Satou's nonexistence has cost Mikale some of his sanity. He writes Satou letters about his day and thinks they are disappearing from the drawer he puts them in, but I will never confirm if Satou is actually magicking them away or if Mikale is pretending they vanish on their own. For the purpose of this application, what really matters is that Mikale believes she is still there. He doesn't believe that Satou could ever truly leave him and has chosen to only acknowledge facts that prove she has a spiritual presence in his world. This still makes him seem like a lunatic. As previously stated, he sometimes talks to thin air as if she can hear him. He will buy gifts for her as if she can still somehow interact with them, things like flowers or dolls that she can admire (not clothes, since she cannot wear them, or food.) He also acts as though he has a girlfriend, so won't accept romantic advances and is cautious about not "cheating" on her memory.
In a game setting he will tone his apparent insanity down to some degree since he doesn't believe Satou could world-hop with him. She didn't come last time, so he doesn't expect her to do it this time. Still, he'll recover from depression and loneliness by pretending she is in Hinoto-ri: In this case, at least, he knows that he is just pretending. Back home, he is being 100% genuine.

Because for what its worth, Mikale still loves Satou. He is content with the memories he has of her and she continues to be a primary motivator in his daily life. Mikale tries hard to do new things and live a good life for her sake, even if he does sometimes find himself wishing she was physically there with him. He takes good care of her old friends and looks out for strangers on her behalf. He understands why she erased herself and respects her decision. Mikale wants everyone in her magic-less world to be happy and believe in themselves. In a lot of ways he has adopted the personality traits that he loved about her: he's more optimistic, he tries very hard, and he cares a lot about others (but has set up a "friendzone.")