*rubs the scar on my forehead that gives me an inherent connection to the wilderness* The foils between Mahiru and Shinya that dictate the course of the guren ichinose light novels even as Kagami never directly explores their relationship or even either of them as characters that exist outside of Guren .... Mahiru's arc in cat16 being about how she was being Changed and slowly corrupted from the inside as she sought to upend the world herself, while Shinya's was about exploring his sense of self and not letting the world change or jeopardize that to the very end ......... Mahiru having to succumb to the Powers That Be even if it's just to enact her grand plan while not even God's world-ending taboo can wake Shinya up after he's already chosen to die ....... Mahiru telling Guren he has to get stronger while Shinya tells him to stay weak if it means he'll stay as Guren ........ Shinya being physically restored but not being in the same place as Guren mentally due to the conditions of the Resurrection, while Mahiru no longer has a body but is fully conscious with Guren, and both of them haunt Guren as dead-but-not-gone figures regardles ................
