Hina Sato (Saint of Sin)

## Hina's Mother

### The Tragedy of Mina Sato

Mina Sato was a former US Army lieutenant who had retired at 42 years old. She had moved back to her home country of Japan where she gave birth to Hina. Sadly though, her Korean-American husband, Renald Young (Young had chose to keep and honor Mina's surname), was killed in a tragic car accident that October (2021) after an exhausted truck driver veered head-on into the lane he was travelling. He had been driving to the hospital to see Hina be born, but that's when the accident took place. It was almost midnight, so it was very unfortunate timing that the sleepy truck driver dozed off at the wrong moment which killed the both of them. Hina's father was buried at a local cemetary and Mina Sato was devastated from his death. Sato-san almost ended up spiting Hina as a result, but retained her mental resilience.

### War Marching Close

Four months later in February, Sato-san was keeping up with the news when she noticed that Russia began to finally mobilize troops towards Ukraine. She contacted several of her former military companions, and her friend who operated military satellites confirmed it. Immediately, she began contacting real estate dealers and sold her home to one a day later. With roughly $235,000 saved up in total (with her life savings and retirement money) now in her pocket, she rented a small yacht with solar panels and modern amenities for $35,000. The rest of the world wouldn't last for long, so the yacht is basically hers now. Within the next two days, she bought and moved $50,000 worth of food, water, survival supplies, building supplies, and emergency items onto the yacht. She then went to the military base located in Iwakuni and retrieved an AR rifle and M18 Sig from the armory with special permission granted by her former captain that knew her. Given that this was an extremely volatile situation, he wanted to give her a means of protection. Sato-san loaded up on several boxes of 5.56 and 9mm ammunition too, then headed back to her yacht where she kept Hina. She then locked up the guns in a newly-installed gun safe and began her final preparations to leave. Sato-san had roughly $120,000 left after all due taxes and extra costs from her purchases. She would plan to use it to buy an island in the Pacific, but she set sail first. Japan could be attacked at any moment as they backed South Korea and Taiwan. Using the satellite dish mounted on the small yacht, she quickly purchased (using a new laptop) a fairly remote island at just the "right spot" where it was far from other civilizations, had a blooming jungle, and was very good for its size. It was listed for $110,000 which was quite the bargain, but the only issue was that there were a population of predatory wild dogs there. Sato didn't mind as she believed she could wipe out the entire group eventually and thought she snagged a deal.

### World War III

Two days into her voyage, she received some late news that Russia had finally entered and invaded Ukraine's borders. Her satellite communications friend had told her that things instantly got bloody and chaotic, and that it wasn't just Russia but also with China who quickly did the same thing to Taiwan. Sato-san was appalled at how fast things escalated and how it was about to turn into World War III. Regardless of what was happening across Asia and Europe, Sato-san kept calm and drew up plans to create a small homestead on her new island. First would be to hunt all the wild dogs, preserve their meat in the yacht's freezer, plant the different seeds she brought and grow many crops, round up the island's hog population, and go from there. She also planned to beach the yacht on the island as she most likely couldn't return to anywhere else in the world later. She knew that she had to become self-reliant at a time like this.

### Making a Homestead & Nukes Flying

About a month and a half passed and Sato-san got much of the work done while caring for newborn Hina in March. Using the electrical tools she conveniently brought, she was quickly able to cut down trees and build what she needed to. She also always shot every wild dog she came across as a precaution as to not be mauled down. Sato-san had cleared out a sizeable amount of flat land and successfully started growing a variety of vegetables and fruit. To also increase the local wildlife population, she also planted them all across the island randomly where-ever she tread. She also had completed a medium-sized log cabin located on higher ground further inland. The cabin had solar panels and air conditioning, and was extremely resilient to the weather. Sato-san was extremely proud of herself and that she had an extra plan if something were to happen to the yacht, although she doubted that. Even though the yacht was thoroughly beached, Sato-san decided to ensure it wouldn't get washed away by tying it down with tons of ropes to trees in the forest. The yacht over the month sunk into the sand quite a bit already, but she would not take chances for the worst-case scenario to happen. Her friend called her up again and warned her that South Korea and Japan had been nuked by North Korea and asked if she was okay. Sato-san was literally speechless. The base in Iwakuni she had visited earlier had been blasted by a nuke and also the prefecture she once lived in. Sato-san explained to her friend that she had left Japan a month earlier so she was indeed safe. Relieved but surprised at this information, her friend breathed a sigh of relief. After a few more minutes of talking, her friend said she needed to get back to work and ended the call.

Sato-san picked up her pace a bit to prepare for a potential nuclear winter. Over the next few weeks, she worked on two storage buildings, a toilet room with a light plastic toilet she brought with her, a water-tank setup for both fresh and saltwater use, and a fenced area for livestock. She rounded up several hogs into the enclosure and began to breed them for meat later. Sato-san then worked on erecting proper walls and a roof to place over the enclosure to keep the hogs safe and dry from the elements, and also moved some extra supplies from the yacht to storage huts. Sato-san then took a break for a week and on the first day she checked up the news via satellite internet, and her worst fear came true. All the countries with nuclear warheads ended up nuking each other and killing millions of people the past week. She dismissed it and said that was enough news for one day, and decided to watch some anime she had downloaded. Piracy? The world is about to end soon so that didn't matter to her. She decided to take a break from construction.

### Preparing for Nuclear Winter

After her week-long "vacation", Sato-san began working on a sheltered path between the yacht and to her homestead. She knew that radioactive material could end up floating to her island, so she wanted to create shade over as much as she could cover. Most of the doors and windows to the outside of her yacht were eventually superglued shut, with just a few left but now had watertight seals installed by her. She also created a wooden staircase that led to the deck of the yacht, with a small fenced area and gate at the base to prevent wild animals from boarding. It was all simple things, but to Sato-san she was amazed at how much she achieved in just two months time.

Sato-san had been carefully checking up and taking care of Hina every few hours to make sure she was okay, which she was every single time. Hina was left in the air-conditioned yacht where she mostly slept if she wasn't being fed by Sato-san. One day Hina would have to face the harsh reality that is outside, but for now she will be resting in blissfulness.

With all her preparations now complete, Sato-san decided to spend the rest of her time with Hina after feeding the hogs and farming. Even though Hina was just six months old, Sato-san still kept trying to teach her things. From speaking and learning the Japanese and English language, to basic math. Hina grew quickly academically.

### Maria's Sacrifice and Last Gift to Mina

On March 26, 2022, her friend called Sato-san up once more, but for an urgent matter. She told Sato-san that the world will most likely be ending soon and to pray for her. Her friend, later recalled as Maria (which was an alias for confidentiality), ended up giving Sato-san access to American military satellites. Maria knew that she had little time to live before her location ended up being nuked, so she wanted to give Sato-san the ability to look from the skies before that happened. The two tearfully exchanged their last goodbyes and she told Maria she would remember and cherish the memories they had together. After that day, Sato-san never heard from Maria again. She believed that the control center she was stationed at was blown up. Sato-san built a small makeshift grave near the highest peak on the island to honor Maria's death. May she look over Sato-san and Hina from the heavens, she proclaimed.

### Flood-Proofing the Homestead

Over the next week, she increased the height of the pathways from the yacht to her hut, finished the walls and roofs for everything, and reinforced them with rope. She had used Japanese joinery techniques to make solid joints between every piece of wall and roof, so adding rope to them and essentially stitching them together was just another precaution she took. Sato-san then built angled walls on the outside of the regular vertical ones to provide aerodynamic flow for the wind to prevent them from falling over, and to add extra support. Each day, Sato-san checked the military satellites and saw that almost 10% of Earth was being blown up daily. Eventually though on the eigth day, black and white smoke covered much of the atmosphere over major landmasses. She assumed the worst and that most people were dead, which was the terrible truth in the end.

### Extreme Climate Change

About a month passed and by the end of April, the ocean creeped up nearly 20ft inland on Sato-san's island. Thankfully she had predicted this as a possibility, so all the pathways, buildings, and yacht were all intact. The animal pens, huts, and farmland was on higher ground, so she didn't worry much about them being flooded.

A few days pass and snow began to fall from the skies. The temperature began to also drop and Sato-san noticed the ocean began to form slush. The waters began to grow more quiet as much of the oceans slowly froze over- as she noted from checking the satellite network. Hina-san didn't have much to worry about like always because of her good foresight. She had also constructed clay stoves for burning wood and providing heat to all her buildings. Her animals and crops stayed warm as she and Hina comfortable lived inside the yacht. The yacht, however, eventually had to switch to gasoline as the skies darkened for a prolonged amount of time. Sato-san hadn't used the gasoline in the yacht since arriving, so she would be safe and warm for quite a while. Even if she had to move to her hut up the island, it would be fine for the both of them.

Another month passes. It was now May 2022. Every ocean ended up freezing over, entire lands covered completely in blankets of snow. Aside from checking the satellites every so often and taking care of her "farm" and Hina, Sato-san began to grow quite tired and exhausted. She decided to make a sled and course, and had fun outside in the snow with Hina. Hina now could walk and babble, but she could understand words even though she herself could not speak them. The two enjoyed their frequent time outside bonding together, and was taught scholarly lessons while indoors.

### More Precautions

Sato-san noticed that less-hardy crops she was growing had begun to slowly wither away from the lack of proper sunlight and proper warmth, so she quickly harvested them and froze them outside in makeshift "freezers". She then rotated them out and planted more resilient food like potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage, kale, et al. The livestock she was caring for were usually lazing in front of the warm clay stoves most of the time, so aside from feeding, providing them water, and adding more wood to the stoves, she didn't have to do much. The inside of all the buildings she constructed had cement applied, so they were pretty much warm and isolated all the time. A small intake hole/pipe dragged fresh air in near the clay stoves, and pushed old air out through the stove vents.

Due to snow covering the ground and flying up to 30ft in the air, her satellites are unable to see the landscape worldwide.

### The Gift

Time goes by and it is now June 2022. On the 15th, she noticed something strange on the satellite imagery and decided to investigate it further. Doing a bunch of zooming and checking different satellites and photo-capture history, she found that a meteor had landed on the opposite side of the world in the frozen Atlantic Ocean. It caused a large circular ripple and cleared the area from snow to be able to be seen. Later in the evening on the same day, she felt the enormous shockwave caused by the meteor, which shook everything on the island up. Good for Sato-san, nothing had broke except for some cracks appearing in the clay stoves, which she easily repaired.

Over the next few months, she would notice that the meteor caused volcanoes to form bodies of islands in the Atlantic. It seemed that the area was so hot that it allowed Sato-san to constantly observe it. Although it was interesting to see, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Sato-san continued to work on her island homestead to commit to surviving with Hina, while looking at the interesting meteor-islands daily.

### Discovery of Mana

On June 21, 2023, roughly one year after surviving nuclear winter, Sato-san felt a strange presence in the air, unlike anything she had experienced before. At first, she worried it might be a symptom of an oncoming heart attack or a medical condition. Fearing the worst, she prepared herself and gathered emergency medical aid equipment from the yacht.

As the peculiar sensation slowly dissipated, Sato-san realized it wasn't a physical ailment but something else entirely. It felt as if an invisible force had entered her body and melded with her being, like water seeping into the earth. Concerned but curious, she checked on Hina to ensure she was unaffected. Although Hina seemed slightly discomforted, she was otherwise fine.

Sato-san opened her laptop and quickly accessed the satellite imagery of the area where the meteor had struck a year earlier. To her astonishment, the impact site appeared as a dark, black circle—an ominous void amidst the surrounding landscape. Doubt and disbelief coursed through her mind as she contemplated the possible scenarios and reasons behind this strange phenomenon.

Intrigued and compelled by her unyielding curiosity, Sato-san decided to explore the enigmatic black circle. Leaving Hina under the care of her trusted friend, she set out on a daring expedition, venturing across the frozen ocean towards the mysterious anomaly.

As Sato-san approached the site, she noticed a peculiar shift in the atmosphere. It felt as if a dormant energy had been awakened, resonating with her very being. The air crackled with an otherworldly presence, and she could sense a power unlike anything she had encountered before. This was the source of the strange sensation she had felt earlier—an energy she would come to know as mana.

With cautious steps, Sato-san entered the black circle, her heart pounding with anticipation and trepidation. As she ventured deeper, the darkness seemed to swirl and dance around her, obscuring her surroundings. It was an eerie and thrilling experience—one that held the promise of extraordinary discoveries.

Inside the circle, Sato-san found herself surrounded by an ethereal landscape bathed in soft, radiant light. The ground beneath her feet felt alive, pulsating with energy. Vibrant flora and fauna unlike anything she had ever seen sprouted and roamed freely. The air hummed with magical resonance, carrying whispers of ancient secrets.

In this newfound realm, Sato-san encountered magnificent creatures, both awe-inspiring and fearsome. She witnessed the majesty of mythical beasts and forged unexpected alliances with beings of extraordinary power. Sato-san's knowledge of military strategy and survival skills proved invaluable in navigating this uncharted domain, earning her respect and admiration from the mystical inhabitants.

As she delved deeper into the mysteries of mana, Sato-san discovered her own latent magical abilities. She honed her skills through arduous training and sought guidance from the wise elders of this realm. With each passing day, her understanding of mana grew, and she became a formidable force in her own right.

Throughout her journey, Sato-san's love and devotion for Hina remained unwavering. She often thought of her daughter and longed to share the wonders of this enchanted realm with her. But for now, Sato-san understood that her primary mission was to protect Hina and ensure her safety.

In this realm of mana, Sato-san found purpose and solace. She had transcended the horrors of the world she had left behind and embraced a new destiny. With each passing day, she grew stronger, both physically and spiritually, as she forged her path in this extraordinary realm.

## Mina & Hina

### Cultivating Mana

For the next 10 years, Mina Sato would use her pre-existing knowledge about magic and the workings of mana to grow in her magical strength. During this time, she also noticed a drop in radiation in the dust that was swept around her island by measuring radioactivity on her geiger counter. At the end of her personal training, she taught Hina the first fundamentals of magic (of what Mina learned and knew so far) when she became 12 years old (in 2033). They started out with how the mana in the "ambient air" could be gathered and used, and the two together found that they could do so by either chanting specific words, writing the words with inscriptions on any writable medium then applying energy through it, or by utilizing a medium like a wand to cast magic without chanting- in a specific, accurate direction.

Mina did not push her daughter too hard when having her study and experiment with mana on her own, but Sato-san herself studied fervously every single day to increase her magical opus.

By the second year of her studies, Sato-san's hair began to grow white. By the third year, it completely turned a graceful snow white color. The ends of Hina's hair also grew white as Mina began to drastically increase her scholarly studies on regular academics and magic when she turned 15 years old. Hina didn't mind though, she was absolutely fascinated with magic and how mana worked and wanted to discover more about it.

Sato-san also sown herself an elegant white dress-outfit as her hair changed color to match it. It was beautifully completed in 2036, and is what she would wear when she left her homestead island.

### Sailing to Odin

The years pass (it is now the year 2036) with Mina Sato and her daughter Hina having researched and studied the mana she found out about earlier. The two together grew up quickly and created a myriad of different magical spells and applications for mana.

While Sato-san kept tabs on the new island area in the Atlantic (but is not visible on satellite anymore though), she had been aware the black circle "cloud" that covered it had turned white back in 2031. There hasn't been any change to that fact since, so she decided that it was finally time to go explore the place as she believed that the meteor she had seen over ten years ago was where mana originated from.

The yacht Mina Sato had been using as her primary home was still in perfect condition thanks to repair magic she had developed, and had kept it well-maintained. But before she head out to the Atlantic Ocean which was on the other side of the world, Sato-san decided it was best to reinforce the yacht a bit more in case a dangerous situation arose.

Sato-san cast physical-strengthening magic on the yacht itself, and then put up camouflage and magic reflective barriers.

With this, she and Hina were ready to go, and set sail on January 10, 2036.

### Arriving in Odin

Sato-san cast acceleration magic to speed up the yacht's engine, and also reduced the friction of the boat to make it glide through the water faster than any normal ship; it basically flew over the water like oil at over 300 knots. By January 14, 2036, their ship finally arrived in Odin, and it was truly a sight to behold to both Sato-san and Hina.

From afar, she noticed that there were already many settlements and camps of all sizes. She sailed the ship to another area to check out other places. While observing more closely, she noticed that there were monsters in certain spots. Sato-san's inner otaku instantly lit up like a sun and she bolted from the yacht immediately to go check them out in person.

She flew over the water using flight magic and landed on the beach near a cave where some zombie-like creatures were loitering. The grouped monsters immediately began to chase her, but Sato-san was much too quick and looked at them from all angles while making mental notes of their characteristics and appearances. After a few minutes or so, and with the monsters clearly becoming more agitated, she finally decided to attack them to see how resistant they were to her magic. First, she ignited one of them with fire, which immediately caused it to burn and seemingly melt away to ashes. Next, she shot an icicle missile into the leg of another, but it persisted and kept trying to chase after her. She shot another into its head and the monster stopped completely, then fell to the ground.

Clearly, like in movies, blasting them through the head instantly killed them. Sato-san believed they had anatomies similar to other regular creatures like animals and humans with brains. The monsters seemed to be quite weak against magic, and probably physical weapons as well given how easily she took two down. With this, she ended the other five creatures using an electric blast. Even though she cast lightning, she noted that it seemed severely weaker than when she tested it out back on her own island. Sato-san hypothesized that great amounts of mana in the air interferred with electricity, which she noted for future use.

### Gathering New Intel

Sato-san quietly began monitoring the strange life that thrived on the islands and found out the collective landmasses was referred to as "Odin". She noticed the various groups and individuals who came to Odin seeking a safer or better life. From former military or government workers to people who were lucky when they stayed in a bunker that was not hit, or were from those "rare areas" that just were barely missed by nukes or conflict. People had been constructing new buildings and researching mana and something called "dragon ore".

As she continued to gather more intel while using camouflaging magic on herself, she came to notice that the people within Odin somewhat lacked the fundamentals of using magic independently. People were attempting to connect or harvest mana to use for technology that ran on electricity, which was incredibly inefficient. She saw that instead making new inventions that properly utilized the power of mana and Dragon Ore, they were trying to convert them to use mana.

Sato-san honestly believed that more could be done, but she told herself it was barely 10 years since mana came into existence.

She also found that there were two suspicious groups that had developed more individual magic further than people from governments or the military. With how they cloaked themselves and always wore masks that covered their entire faces, she believed that they were "new-age terrorists"; people who planned on doing large criminal acts. She observed on two occassions of these two groups fighting against one another, as if there was a secret turf war going on. Sato-san quickly left after a few minutes to avoid potentially being detected by magic she does not yet know about.

Life in Odin was incredibly refreshing to both Mina and Hina, although Hina was mostly stuck on the yacht as instructed by Sato-san for her safety, but she enjoyed watching what was going on by using observation magic connected to Sato-san's makeshift necklace.

### Studies & Undercover Living

For the next two years, Sato-san would experiment with new magic spells, innovations, and equipment found throughout Odin. They would also secretly hunt monsters together for Hina to get some real combat experience. In addition to this, Sato-san would disguise herself as a simple woman who fled Japan as soon as she heard about Odin (rumors) a decade after it formed. She pretended to be ignorant of magic when meeting different people and slowly gained more knowledge and experience.

Hina, back at the yacht, would end up making breakthrough discoveries on uses for mana and new types of magic based on the things she observed in Odin. She created a magic device that allowed someone to suck the mana from dragon ore (or anything that contained mana, including the air), and then convert it into condensed "liquid" mana. This liquid mana seemed to take on new properties that closely resembled a liquid, but could do several different things. Hina noted that liquid mana must be contained in a container, otherwise it would immediately begin to dissipate back into mana in its normal form. Liquid mana can be captured and stored in a container like a liquid, but the container itself acts more like a semi-porous membrane rather than a solid barrier to hold the liquid mana in. What this meant is that liquid mana could leak out and convert back into regular mana if the container was violently shaken up, or the liquid mana itself was vibrated/shaken by a tool. The less air the container had that contained the liquid mana, the longer the liquid mana stayed in liquid form; more air meant that liquid mana changed back into regular mana at an exponential rate. Hina believed liquid mana could be stored for indefinite amounts of time in the right conditions, but she never managed to do that in these two years.

Sato-san and Hina would go out for training and killing monsters on almost a daily basis. The two would both practice using their various magic they invented or learned, and also fighting using more crude methods such as swords, bows, etc. They soon found out that weapons could be enhanced using magic and hunted using this method sometimes.

The two rapidly became accustomed to life in Odin and thought it was time to build their own homestead there, but things took a turn for the worse as the 1st Magi War broke out, and they had to scrap their initial plans.

## Aliases

Hina Sato first obtained the nickname of "Saint of Sin" during the 2nd Magi War when she was blamed for the deaths of many from doing nothing to stop the war. It then became the "Saintess of Sin" for honorific reasons, when she invited (to Ysu) and sheltered those whose lives had been ruined by the war, and then eventually turned into just "Saintess" as everyone knew that the special but plain title was held by one known person. The Saintess is both a hated and loved individual, depending on the person.

* Saint of Sin
* Saintess of Sin
* Saintess