Marie Golden

**Mari** is the deuteragonist of *SANABI*. She is the sole survivor of the strange events within Mago City, a hacker prodigy and a computer engineer sent from a military intelligence team. She accompanies the player throughout the events of the game, providing technical support and advice while attempting to uncover information about what happened within the city.

## Throughout *SANABI*

### Investigating Mago City

24 hours before the events of the game, the 2.97 million inhabitants of Mago City seemed to disappear. No investigation teams sent by the military returned, but one survivor, Mari, managed to break through the communications blackout to send a distress signal, claiming she had discovered important information. The protagonist is sent to ensure Mari's safety, and to find out what she has discovered.

Her personal drone, Mufin, seeks the protagonist out and leads him to Mari's hiding place, where she is startled by him before the two are forced to flee the city's automated demolition robot. She reveals that there is no information and that all the data in the city has apparently been wiped, leaving no clues as to what has happened. She devises a plan to destroy the city's demolition machine and retrieve its black box, but discovers that it has been removed; however, she finds an electronic key, granting her executive access to the Mago Group's offices.

Once inside, she attempts to hack into their files, but finds that everything there has been wiped as well, save for a corrupted log related to Sanabi. She informs the protagonist that Sanabi is at the top floor of the city, and accompanies him on his way up, guiding him through the city and giving advice, as well as constantly trying to make small talk with him. She attempts to save his life when he is cornered by a large robot in a train station; however, she is attacked instead and is promptly saved by the protagonist, who collapses. When he regains consciousness, the two discuss their goals, and they agree to reach the top floor together. She also makes a strange request for him to play the harmonica, but he declines.

### Ascending Mago City

The two of them encounter Justice in the business district, exciting her, as she is apparently a longtime fan of the wandering mercenary. Despite the protagonist's protests, she takes a selfie with the mercenary outside of their mech suit, before Justice disappears. However, she is shocked to later discover that the Justice they encountered was one of a series of robots created by the Mago Group, based on a "datafied" personality of the real Justice. Disturbed by this revelation, she points out that the use of such technology is a severe crime, and that the Mago Group is likely involved in a large conspiracy related to it.

Mari later guides the protagonist through Mago's central factory in an attempt to reach the top, but she is frightened by the factory's Overseer and attempts to flee. She decides to return, however, and steals a flying car in order to help the protagonist escape. The two of them attempt to disable the Overseer by disabling its backup power core, where she saves the protagonist from being vaporized by the automated security, but the plan goes awry when they discover an entire array of backup cores and the Overseer attempts to vaporize them while ripping the facility apart.

After using a flying car to escape the factory and reach the top level, Mari is knocked unconscious when they collide with the roof, and has a dream of three days prior, where she is revealed to have been obsessively investigating the Mago Group's activities. She pays a hacker to break into Mago's files, and they find the "Sanabi Project" for her. However, they are traced and killed by Mago security forces, who discover that the Sanabi Project was leaked.

### At the top floor

Upon regaining consciousness, Mari discovers that her drone, Mufin, was destroyed in the fall, and promptly mourns his death. After being informed by the protagonist that robots are not comparable to people, Mari suffers a full mental breakdown, demanding that the protagonist play the harmonica as her father used to. The protagonist coldly informs her that he is not her father, seemingly worsening her mental state as she breaks down into deranged laughter. Once she recovers, she simply states that the protagonist is right, and continues to follow him on a replacement drone as they make for Mago Group's headquarters.

Upon their arrival, Mari informs the protagonist that Sanabi is in the building's basement. However, the protagonist questions her about the state of the building, having discovered that it is full of corpses, whereupon Mari nonchalantly informs the protagonist that the ongoing massacre of everyone in the city is for the Mago Group to cover up "[his] mere existence." Before he can question her further, the two of them are interrupted by Major Song, who attacks the protagonist and demands Mari come with her to leave the city. Mari threatens to commit suicide in order to coerce Song into sparing the protagonist, though she is soon disarmed.

It is revealed that Mari is the protagonist's daughter, and that the protagonist is in fact a robot using a datafied version of his personality. She created a digital personality of him in an attempt to help him cope with the loss of his wife, her mother, and he was killed by the Mago Group when they stole it ten years prior. Just before the events of the game, Mari used her stolen copy of the Sanabi Project on a dormant worker robot in an attempt to bring her father back to life, creating the protagonist.

In the present, Mari prepares to disable the nuclear power plant from inside in order to prevent it from detonating, an act that will claim her life, and tells the protagonist to leave her alone. Despite having his memories fully restored, she still harshly rejects him, calling him a fake and telling him that he is not her father. However, he plays a song she used to enjoy, "Sanabi," for her on the harmonica she'd given him, causing her to embrace him and tearfully apologize.

After reuniting with her father, she realizes that he plans to disable the core in her place, and pleads with him not to go. However, he declines, and she tearfully breaks down. He informs her that he loves her, before telling her to remember him. She salutes him as he leaves, before collapsing against the wall, exhausted. Later, she is seen visiting her father's grave site, finally making peace with his death. It is revealed that she has joined the army, and that she has also developed a wire-arm similar to her father's, which she uses to swing away.

## Personality

Her personality is initially cheery and talkative, though she is also shown to be easily frightened, hiding when the player first encounters her and regularly cowering in the face of danger. Her energetic personality is a point of contention for the protagonist, whose serious demeanor often clashes with her own. She is also very boastful of her own talents, whether real or perceived, constantly stating that she is a brilliant hacker.

However, as the game progresses, a different side of Mari becomes more visible over time. She appears to secretly harbor a deep sense of depression, later revealed to be guilt for believing herself responsible for her father's death. Despite her fearful nature, she states that she is prepared to die in Mago City and does not intend to leave it alive. After the death of her drone, Mufin, she suffers a mental breakdown directed towards the protagonist. She grows colder and less energetic after this, and becomes more hostile towards the protagonist, evading his questions and seemingly withholding information from him.

## Trivia

* Mari is shown to be a pop-culture fanatic, as she makes frequent references to a variety of fictional anime and video games, many of which are loosely based on real-life media.
* Mari states that she hates birds, shortly before she is attacked by pigeons. This is mentioned in a previous flashback scene, where a young Mari tells her father that she dislikes pigeons.
* Mari is apparently 17 or 18 years old; although it was ten years since her father's death, at the age of 8, she informs her hacker friend that she is still a minor.
* Mari's drone, Mufin, was named after her childhood cat.