What extremely upsets me about the OnS fandom is the widespread view that Mika wholeheartedly wants to die and suffers because of Yui, who, due to his selfish obsession, cannot let go of the past and forces Mika to follow him. Yes, Mika has said many times that you can’t bring back the past and that resurrecting Akane and the others is a crazy idea, but you also have to take into account that these are just words. Inside Mika, there are also other feelings, and Kagami has repeatedly emphasized this in the manga. Mika, just like Yui, desperately wanted to bring Yui back and preserve the remnants of the family he once had. Kagami didn’t dedicate an entire chapter to Mika turning into a demon, while simultaneously dreaming of a happy life with the children from the orphanage, for no reason. With this, Kagami made it clear that staying with Yui for thousands of years and living forever is Mika’s deepest desire. And even without his memories at the time, Demon Mika tried to preserve that illusion. Then there was a whole chapter about Yuichiro sharing the same desire, meaning their motivation is the same—but the difference is that Yuichiro has the courage (or madness) to admit it and even shout it out loud, while Mika is afraid to believe it. No matter how hard I try, I have never seen in Mika that desperate wish to stop existing that part of the fandom ascribes to him. And this is often written by the very same people who point out the lie in Shinoa’s words when she said she was 'a bad girl who doesn’t care about the fate of humanity.' If they recognize that lie, why don’t they see that Mika is also lying and deliberately pushes Yuichiro to leave him in the past, because he thinks that’s the right thing to do, when there are many signs indicating that Mika doesn’t want to die, but wants to freely manage his own life? Like all OnS characters. Except for the vampires and progenitors, who have lived too long.”
Hey anon.
Hmm... I get what you mean regarding the whole "Mika wants to die". If anything, Mika's not really the type for that. One of his desires is that people blame him for the failure of the escape plan; sadly, even if Yuu tells him it's not his fault, Yuu is a close source of the incident. I wonder if someone exterior told him that would he be able to believe it...
But well, let's focus on the second part. Contrast to many characters, Mika is a special case from going as a human, to a half vampire, full vampire and lastly a demon.
You could say depending on the nature, his insight changes a lot.
Let's take first the aspect of half human/half vampire.
Half human/Half vampire
As one, at that point, he had seen the reality of both worlds.
Mika's only drive to keep going was the very fact Yuu was alive and kicking, if anything, his sole goal was to separate him from the demon army due to all the insane experiments humans had conducted for so long.
However, given that he was still half and half, his emotions of regret, sadness, pain, loath, etc.; were still active just like that serenity vampires adquired due to then losing those emotions.
Even as chapters go on, his goal is the same: Save Yuu, take him elsewhere in a quiet zone, and that's it. At that time, he only knew humanity was attempting the Seraph of the End experiment & of course, due to his trips overseas he understood it was a no good.
However, time was running out for him. He struggled and fought the urge to drink blood; he relied on Krul's blood until it wasn't enough.
Vampire Mikaela
Next, is when he fully turns into a vampire after drinking human blood. However, instead of welcoming the change, he actually rejected it.
And I'm not even saying he's in a point of "I don't want to live"; no, he's viewing that his change goes against all things that are supposed to be natural. If anything, Mika clinged to the hope of becoming human once again. But at least during that point of the story, such change was a point of no return.
Furthermore, even back when he was a half vampire, he saw the horror:
This of course only fueled him to reject the whole experiment of the Seraph of the End along how they eventually learnt what it focused on.
In further chapters, when Guren revealed he was going to bring others back, they discusses a lot about the candidates and what not. Ultimately, Yuu was very excited to revive everyone; yet the squad remained with hesitation. Mika on the other hand was fully against it given that
It was true. They didn't know the requirements. They weren't fully aware the stakes for such plan. But Yuu of course pulled the "Akane & the others".
Let's not forget that as a full vampire, the mentality and emotions drastically change. Given that Yuu is still alive, his emotions towards him remain the same because he's "alive" contrast to Akane and the rest of the kids. This of course, doesn't mean he doesn't love them nor means they mean less to him. But rather, he's focusing on what's in front of him. It's like setting on a balance between the living vs the deceased ones. For him, Yuu being alive reflects that even the plan got everyone killed, one managed to live, it means it wasn't for naught.
Even if his vampire nature is dulling his emotions regarding the Hyakuya kids, his rational mind still views them as something precious he lost. It was his family too; he struggles with it, he blames all the time about it; yet because Yuu wants it, he ends up conceiding against his better judgement.
But of course, even his life as a vampire came to an end. And let's point out that he was never happy to become one.
If Mika managed to live for the period of time that flowed within the manga story, it's precisely because there was a source that kept him going, that was of course Yuu. That pushed him to go on, that made him to try and adapt as a vampire yet he was never happy about becoming one.
He ended up accepting he was one, but it was never stated he felt joy. The only thing that he was glad, was the fact that he could protect Yuu with power.
Demon Mikaela. Before & after
Now let's talk about the dream part. Do you remember what are they keypoints that make demons?
Let's look at the Catastrophe LNs and manga.
Demons take the shape when their desires were the purest.
This only means one thing
It means that the dream was the best and purest desire Mika had. For him, those years when he spent time with his family were the best of the world.
At that time, he felt powerful, hence why he adopted the appearance of a kid.
But even before he accepted becoming a demon, he realized all of it was a dream. It wasn't something possible. Even if he wanted to be with his family, to be with the ones he loved, deep down, he wasn't asking to revive them, he knew they died, he understood he lived yet they were killed and for him, allowing Yuu to become a demon meant that he never did his duty properly.
For him, the happiness he felt the most was when he was at that age, spending time with the kids be looked after, cooking, playing, it was pretty much an equivalent to heaven on Earth.
That's why his demon persona couldn't remember but viewed the image, the dream world as something beautiful and worth to protect. Of course that ended up rather quickly given that the 1st needed to capture his soul and sent his right hand for that.
Once he was saved by Yuu and company, he managed to understand Yuu's emotions, the many times Yuu thought about dying.
But now, the final topic. Him seeking to disappear are the same who detect Shinoa's lies... hmm I differ from there.
I believe there's a huge difference between:
"Acknowledging Mika understood he was no longer alive vs Mika saying he wants to disappear".
When Yuu was made to face a harsh decision. A huge dilemma on who to save; for Mikaela at that point, he understood that even if Ferid, Krul, Guren & Mahiru were actors in a huge plot; their battle went against the 1st; the very monster that toyed with their fates. And Guren bringing back humanity was a way to restore all the damage. (At that point he couldn't tell Yuu to leave because he was fully aware the 1st meant bad news).
Even if he was against the resurrection; he knew that Yuu wanted the kids back, however, with that huge decision, he wasn't lying about something.
"He's dead". Back in chapter 89, Asuramaru points it out. Mika died. He vanished from the physical world to become a demon.
But now, even if he's following Yuu, he doesn't entirely have a free will of his own. He's a demon and he's pretty much bound to a contract.
However, on the things he's fully against, is that Yuu sacrifices himself for the angels and the vampires. If anything, he understood well that reviving humanity meant having a safe countermeasure, yet with the angels, that was a different story.
But given that Yuu points out the "I won't be able to bring you back if I don't bring the 1st and the vampires", Mika can't do much about it.
So, while Mika does accept the resurrection of humanity even if it's not a good thing; he's not exactly in favor of bringing the rest back considering that it'd mean that his whole mission of protecting Yuu would be for naught.
So dear anon, I don't view Mika as a character that wants to disappear but rather, has long accepted he's pretty much dead, he no longer has a physical body. Yet at this point, he's only focused on protecting Yuu.
