Aurica Nestmile

Aurica Nestmile is one of the heroines of the first Ar tonelico game, Melody of Elemia.
She is a very shy girl, who is very depressed and has a strong distrust of people as a result of a horrible event in her childhood, for which she blames herself. She is the daughter of a human and a Reyvateil and hails from a small village on the Wings of Horus. Her abilities as a Reyvateil are poor, thus earning her the lowly title of “D-class”. Her self confidence is very low making her feel as though she is useless, and she is often looking to her stuffed bear called “Don Leon” for support - to such a degree that he became her Mind Guardian. She is emotionally dependent and deathly afraid of being hurt emotionally. In short, she is a tortured soul.
Aurica is obsessed with the Trio of Elemia, and religious elements can be found in her songs as a result. This obsession and her only friend Claire Branch are the only things keeping her going. That is until she finally gets a partner. The dense minded, but formidable fighter and Knight of Elemia, Lyner Barsett.
==Aurica's Story==
===Origins and the Elemia Church===
Aurica was born in Skuwat Village in Koudeinomikoto (April) of the 3753 AD year, daughter of a human father and a Reyvateil mother. As a child, she was cheerful and happy. At the age of 11, her hometown was tragically destroyed during a battle between Tenba and the Teru Tribe. Her parents were killed and her home destroyed - she lost everything and was then alone in the world. Aurica and her childhood friend, Claire, are the only two survivors from Skuwat.
As a result, she blamed herself for what happened, because she was out of town when the fight happened and believed she could have saved them. She became very distrusting of people, depressed and withdrawn. Her future abilities as a Reyvateil suffered greatly as well, thus placing her in the ‘D-class’ of Reyvateils. This made her easy to victimize when she joined the Elemia Church three years later with the hopes of becoming the new Holy Maiden and a chance to meet with the Goddesses.
Because she is a 3rd generation Reyvateil, she cannot live beyond the approximate age of 15 to 20 without receiving a life extending agent called Diquility. There are only two organizations in the world that have it: Tenba and the Elemia Church. Obviously, Aurica chose to join the Church.
No sooner was she in the door of the church, when Bishop Falss came up with the idea to use her as the new vessel of Mir. Aurica was kept partner-less for three years until Lyner arrived. She was partnered with him as a part of Falss’ plan.
===Fated Meeting===
Aurica first appeared saving Lyner's life with her Life Warmth Song Magic, since Lyner was almost dead from the impact when he crashed his airship in Viola Forest. She dropped her handkerchief when she left, and when Lyner later tried to return it to her, she feigned not knowing him. A little later, in the city of Nemo, she was saved from the infected A.B.R. Alpha guardian thanks to Jack and Lyner, where, thanks to Lyner's ability to raise a Reyvateil's power using Harmonics, she began to grow stronger.
She was soon after captured by Bourd and subsequently freed when Misha selflessly surrendered herself in Aurica’s place after Bourd threatened to kill his captive. Regardless of Misha's actions, Bourd threw her out of the airship and Lyner ended falling with her when he tried to save her. Luckily, they were saved by Krusche, who happened to be flying her airship nearby. It ended up crashing in a floating island called the Falcon's Claw, but they survived, and found the ruins of a temple dedicated to goddess Tyria of the Trio of Elemia. A little later, they were rescued by Radolf.
Aurica also assisted Lyner in the search for the Hymn Crystal Purger in the Singing Hill ruin, where, when the ruin collapsed during the search, she crafted the Song Magic Thunder Guard to save Lyner from falling in the Sea of Death. Both Krusche and Radolf were astonished by this fact, since it's very rare for a Reyvateil to craft a Song outside of the Cosmosphere. Afterwards, while searching for Lyner, she was cornered by the A.B.R. Gamma guardian, who was infected by viruses, and was saved by Lyner and Jack.
===Ascension===
Later on, Aurica and the others accompanied Lyner in his ascension through the tower, and she again helped Lyner when she was paired with him for the Ordeal of the Moon, the trial that they had to pass so the Teru Tribe would open the Pheyna Gate for them. In there, Aurica explained to Lyner about the Reyvateil class system. Additionally, she gave the silly name "Kitty Bowl" to the Circula Teleporter they needed to pass the Frozen Eye.
Aurica is a dreamer. Blinded by this and Lyner’s faith in her, she took on the responsibility of singing the hymn Purger to help destroy the virus ELMA-DS. Halfway through the fight, Aurica’s mind was severely damaged when ELMA-DS forcibly ripped a hole in her Cosmosphere and ran rampant inside. The attack nearly killed her. Lyner and his friends entered Aurica’s Cosmosphere to duke it out with ELMA-DS. In the end, the virus was driven out and Aurica recovers.
Aurica also tried to repair the Musical Corridor to stop the storm that was plaguing Nemo and Firefly Alley, but a virus appeared from inside her, and Shurelia and Ayatane had to intervene. Aurica immediately withdrew, assuming that the incident was all her fault. Shurelia explained that the viruses appeared because Aurica had a hole in her mind. Aurica didn't like this statement, and became depressed thinking that she was defective. Shurelia then suggested that Lyner dive into Aurica to investigate the matter.
===Discovery===
After receiving instructions from Falss to find the Hymn Crystal Linker, Aurica began to have high fever, and was taken to the inn in Nemo to rest. Lyner and the others began talking to Claire and learned a bit about Aurica's past. However, Lyner was unaware that Aurica was calling for him from her room the whole time. Aurica expressed her disdain at Lyner for ignoring her calls, and at Claire for telling the others stories about her childhood that she considered embarassing. Aurica threw a tantrum and ran off angry. With the help of Misha, Lyner and the others found her in the fallen Hexagonal Plate and brought her back to Nemo. After Aurica apologized to Claire and the others for her outburst, Claire notices Aurica's fever and suggests that she is suffering from Tatoolist. And since she had received the Diquility treatment not long ago, there is no reason that she should have that illness. Lyner then remembers that Shurelia had asked him to dive into Aurica before to fix the hole in her mind. He is then met with an image of the goddess Tyria, who informs him that she reincarnated as Aurica, and how she was able to return to Aurica's mind after the incident with the virus at the Musical Corridor. She then informs Lyner about the location of the Hymn Crystal Linker. Lastly, she explains that her intrusion into Aurica's mind is the reason Aurica has gotten sick. She then leaves, promising her return once Aurica sings the hymn. Lyner then administers another Diquility at Aurica's request, and she finally recovers. After Lyner tells her his discovery, Aurica obtains a newfound confidence and positive outlook on life.
After reporting to Falss with their investigation and receiving a grand send-off, they once again travel to the temple in Falcon's Claw. After some obstacles and puzzles, they discovered the Hymn Crystal Linker hidden in its depths. Aurica was overjoyed, since she had found the crystal that no one in the church could find. However, that was only one step for an evil scheme.
Falss and the Church soldiers began a Holy War on Platina, and Falss forced Aurica to sing Linker in the Altar of Apostles. However, as soon as she started singing, Mir tried to forcibly possess her. This happened because Mir exploited an error in the Tower's systems and transferred her hymn code to Aurica, allowing her to sing the Extract type hymns, but also made her vulnerable to Mir's posession, and allowed the viruses to materialize from her Cosmosphere. It was also Mir who appeared as Tyria to mislead them into believing that Aurica was Tyria's descendant. Mir successfully possessed Aurica and transformed Falss into a virus before turning her attention to Lyner and the others. The process was stopped abruptly, when Misha began singing the Chronicle Key, which drove Mir back into the binary field, thus saving Aurica’s life. Aurica and the others decided to rest before confronting Falss one last time.
Upon recovering her strength, Aurica joined Lyner at the Altar of Apostles to put an end to Bishop Falss’ charade once and for all. After a long hard fight, Falss fell to the floor dead at Aurica’s feet. Slaughtered by the one for whom, he had caused incomprehensible pain for so long.
===To the Top of the Tower===
A short while later, Shurelia was taken over by Mir with Ayatane’s help. It was once again time for Aurica to enter the fray of battle beside Lyner to save the world. A little before passing the Blastline to save Shurelia, she went to her hometown with Lyner to find some materials to fix the airship. There, Aurica showed Lyner her old home, and revealed to him that she kept on sending letters to her deceased parents, and that she also left Don Leon at her old house.
After they passed the Blastline, Aurica helped Lyner obtain the FFT Divider, while rescuing his father from the SPU, and used it to sever Mir’s hold over Shurelia. It was shortly before this battle that Lyner first showed indications that he truly has deep feelings for Aurica. She thanked him for everything he had done for her so far, including giving her a life worth living.
Aurica showed how much she had changed her personality when she decided that she would sing the Re=Nation hymn to reactivate the tower and awaken Shurelia.
===Strength===
Eventually, Lyner had dived all the way to level E with Aurica and she attained tremendous power. So much power that she became the strongest 3rd generation Reyvateil ever as well as presumably the first 3rd generation Reyvateil to survive singing an ‘extract’ type hymn. Based on what occurs in game, it is also strongly hinted that Aurica had become just as strong as Misha. Using her new-found power, she helped her friends to defeat Mir, and makes her understand that not all humans are evil.
Also, at that point, Aurica had regained some of her cheerful personality and even began to show a joker side, as Lyner had helped her to overcome her fears and psychological torture. However, she was still a bit shy and her joker side catches Lyner by surprise. She had regained her confidence and it showed greatly in her battle quotes, such as boldly saying “Lyner! Let’s do this!”, instead of asking “Can I do this?”. Her trust in Lyner was sky high, as indicated by her line right before the final showdown with Mir when she put her life solely in Lyner’s hands.
After the battle with Mir, she, together with Misha and Shurelia, sang the Phantasmagoria hymn, with contained the wishes of everyone for a everlasting peace to come to Sol Ciel.
After everyone said their goodbyes to go on with their lives, Aurica uses music boxes as a method of proposing to Lyner. Presumably, he accepts, as they go to Karulu Village, take over the inn there and start selling music boxes powered by song stones there - Lyner makes them, Aurica sells them. Aurica seems very happy in the end and even rags on Shurelia’s lack of direction one last time for good measure.
Note: Many parts of this article assume that the player is going through Aurica's route.
==Role in her Drama CD==
Aurica's Drama CD takes place during the time she is suffering from the Tattoolist Disease on her own route, so it overlaps with a few of the events of the game.
After running away from Claire's place at Nemo, Aurica faints due to the effects of Tattolist, but she gets a Life Extending Agent installed and is saved by a girl called Saya. Saya asks Aurica to accompany her to Firefly Alley in exchange for saving her life, to which Aurica initially objects, but after a while, Saya manages to convince Aurica to join her. After arriving at Firefly Alley, Saya reveals that she did it to meet up with her older sister, who worked for Tenba, while Aurica accidentally reveals to her about how angry she was feeling towards both Claire and Lyner, as well as the reason for her being so depressed. Saya then trips and falls, scrapping her knee. After a couple of failed attempts at healing herself with Song Magic due to being a novice Reyvateil, Aurica decided to show her how it's done, singing EXEC_HYMME_LIFE_W:R:S/. and healing her wound. This amazed Saya, who told her that she was amazing and that most likely she was so good at healing because Claire and Lyner loved her so much, but Aurica deemed herself as a failure due to the incident with the viruses in the Musical Corridor and what Shurelia said about her having a hole on her mind. However, Saya's sunny and mischievous disposition began making a hole in the wall Aurica had made around herself, and began doubting that she was as bad as she thought she was, as well as doubting if Lyner and Claire really hated her.
After a while of walking, they met up a couple of Tenba soldiers, so Aurica let Saya go to ask if the knew about her sister's whereabouts. However, they had to run away when the guards came back chasing them because Saya kicked one of them. After they escaped, Saya explained she did it because the guards were badmouthing her sister and she wouldn't stand for that. Aurica then suggested to seek other way to escape from Firefly Alley and return to Nemo, as most likely the guards would ambush them at the airport if they tried going there. Aurica then remembered that Lyner told her about such an escape route.
They went down to the area with Firefly Alley's power generators, and upon finding the cracked wall Misha and Lyner used to escape sometime ago, Aurica blasted it open with her magic, allowing them passage to the Terraced Fields. However, Saya collapsed due to Tattolist, giving Aurica the shocking revelation that the Diquility Saya had given her was actually intended for Saya's own use. Aurica then tried to carry her away, but a Hulaflower appeared and began attacking them. Aurica did the best she could to fend off the monster, but she couldn't much because she didn't have any time to charge her Songs. Fortunately, Jack and Krusche appeared and helped her to defeat the Hulaflower, after which they took Saya and left for Nemo.
After reaching Nemo, Saya boarded an airship and left them, while Jack and Krusche told Aurica to accompany them to the fallen Hexagonal Plate. Aurica had a debt of gratitude with them, so she accepted. However, she collapsed inside the Plate, so Lyner had to take her back to Nemo. Once there, Lyner performed a Dive into Aurica and discovered the cause for her being so weak: it was due to having Goddess Tyria inside her Cosmosphere. However, Radolf told him that he would still have to Install a Diquility on Aurica for her life to not be in danger anymore, upon which Aurica decided that Lyner would be the one to do it, as Saya suggested it to her previously.
A few days later, Lyner, Ayatane and Radolf left to search for a relic while Aurica prepared herself for the ritual of descent of the Goddesses. During that time, Saya came to greet her and gave to her a keyholder, which was supposed to be a good luck charm. Saya then left and Aurica began her preparations, which according to Bishop Falss, would be for heading off to the Holy Land.
However, once they arrived, the so-called Holy Land happened to be the Symphonic Reactor, and there, Falss and Bourd revealed to Aurica their entire scheme: the Goddesses of the Trio of Elemia didn't exist and the Tyria that showed up in her Cosmosphere was no more than a fake: a figure created by Mir. Upon hearing these things, Aurica realized her entire life and purpose were built upon a lie, shattering her entire set of beliefs, and thus she  decided she didn't have anything left that made her life worthy of being lived, which made it easy for Falss to pressure her into singing EXEC_LINKER/.. However, Lyner arrived in the middle of the song and began trying to convince Aurica that she was no empty vessel and that she still had plenty of reasons to live. The struggle also made Saya's keyholder fall to the ground, and this made Aurica remember everything she still wanted to do with Lyner, Saya and Claire. Despite this rekindling Aurica's will to live, it wasn't enough to save her from being possessed by Mir.
And at that time, Misha established a direct mind-to-mind connection with Aurica, and reassured her that everything would be okay due to her beind reinstated as the Star Singer. Misha then told Aurica to live her life to the fullest for the both of them, and that she would never forgive Aurica if she died. The connection then was severed due to Misha beginning to sing Chronicle Key, and Aurica awakened in Lyner's arms. Lyner told her to run away because Falss had been contaminated by the viruses, but Aurica insisted on fighting as well and supporting the team. After a long battle, they managed to best Falss and Aurica finished him off with one shot of her Song Magic, getting revenge not only for all the things Falss did to ruin her life, but also for treating her as no more than an empty vessel he could use however he wanted.
Radolf and Ayatane then went to Platina and left Lyner in Aurica's care, as he was so wounded he couldn't ever move. Aurica confessed to Lyner she was so pained she could break down and start crying at any second, but she thanked him for giving her a reason to live, as otherwise, she would have allowed herself to get possessed by Mir and died. She then added she had a lot of reasons why she couldn't die yet, but she decided to keep them a secret from Lyner and began using them as a way to tease him, showing her personality had begun changing from being depressive and jaded to a cheery and wisecrack one, showing she was coming to terms with her past and overcoming the fact that she lived following a lie ever since she had joined the Church.
==Role in Ar tonelico II==
She plays the role as the boss of the Syndicate inside of Frelia's Binary Field. To ensure Kuroaki Mawata remains loyal to the Syndicate, she has presented him an ultimatum, kidnap his own childhood friend to prove his loyalty to the Syndicate, or try to escape the clutches of the Syndicate to protect Fururu. Unsuprisingly, Kuroaki defected after realising he is being used by the Syndicate all along. Throughout the story, Aurica and her cohorts constantly coax Kuroaki by any means necessary into returning to the Syndicate to continue developing weapons for them. She even uses her Don Leon costume to (comically) raise her powers.
In the real world, she, together with Misha and Shurelia, sings Phantasmagoria to help Jacqli in her quest in the second tower.
==Aurica's Hymns==
===Hymns===
EXEC_PURGER/.#Aurica extracting - Disconnects and interrupts a program or song executed in the Tower by cutting off the energy flow to it.
EXEC_LINKER/. - Links a Reyvateil to the Tower both physically and mentally, enabling her to perform maintenance at the data level of the Tower's Binary Field, though it can be potentially lethal to the singer.
EXEC_RE=NATION/. - Reboots the Tower while it is in Standby mode.
EXEC_PHANTASMAGORIA/. (together with Misha and Shurelia) - Makes peace between all the living beings in Sol Ciel, though it is more like a prayer for peace.
EXEC_HYMME_LIFE=W:R:S/. (OVA) - Restores the health of her partner.
EXEC_HYMME_MOISKYRIE/. (OVA) - Sharply raises the attack and defense of her partner.
==In Cross Edge==
Aurica appears alongside her fellow Reyvateils in the PS3 crossover RPG, Cross Edge, and its 360 port, Cross Edge Dash. She, Misha, and Shurelia are running from a pack of monsters during their introduction cutscene, but Misha trips and falls, halting their progress. Shurelia then tries to defend the other two with magic, but the lead monster breaks her concentration. Lyner and the main protagonist of Cross Edge, York, arrive to save them at this point.
Aurica functions in much the same way as she does in Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia. She makes for a decent mage and starts with the only group healing technique the team will have for some time. She cannot physically attack at all, but that's to be expected. Aurica possesses fire, wind, thunder, and gravity magic attacks. She is the first playable character to be able to start a magic combo by herself, as well as being one of the only two characters that can trigger the devastating Absolute Fear combo.
==Trivia==
thumb|Aurica in Cross Edge
* She loves cats...to the point that she even sleeps like them.
* Her "weak point" is noted to be around her neck area.
* She loves music boxes and dream of making a living out of it with the man she loves.
* Her install point is located at the back of her neck.
* She has trouble sleeping unless she hugs a blanket between her legs.
* She is extremely horrible at naming things.
* In AT2, Jacqli refers to her as "the girl who sucks at naming things", and "who cooks weird things that taste surprisingly good".
* Aurica was one of the most popular characters in the Toukousphere, which allowed her to receive a monthly corner called Tsukkomi Aurica, in which she constantly cracked jokes at the expense of other characters, or the games themselves.
* Aurica's surname comes from the words "Nest" and "Mir" (interpreted by the creators as "where Mir nests"), which alludes to the fact that Mir can freely access her Cosmosphere, and the Hymn Code both share.
==Gallery==
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==See Also==
*Aurica's Song Magic
*Aurica's Costumes
Category:Reyvateils
Category:Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia
Category:Characters