View source for Enough is Never Enough (Hinoiri Kirara)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2023/08/22
|Location=Obsidian tower, temporary quarters
|Synopsis=Hinoiri ruminates over her choices and wonders... has... she done enough?
|Tinyplot=131
}}
Hinoiri paced back and forth, lightly tossing a small gem into the air, only to catch it when it came back down. Annoying. So… annoying. She wasn’t used to having to ask for things. Having to trade for things. If she wanted something, it was given to her. If she needed something for research, she need only ask a servant. If she wanted something for fun, it… would… when did she ever ask for anything fun?

She glanced down at the gemstone again. The last bit of ‘concentrated’ energy she’d acquired. Was she wasting her time here? What did enjoying herself with bikes help her? She wanted to return home, to come back as a champion. To bring dark energy with her and make Sora KNEEL before her. To make her see that she was everything she knew she could be. That was wasn’t just powerful, wasn’t just incredible.

That she truly did live up to everything that her mentor had seen in her.

So why did she feel so… adrift? Why was she playing games? Learning about motorcycles and dirt bikes? Fiddling with ‘hands’? She slowly walked to her bed and sat on it, dropping the little gem on the small bedside table. Right by her small geode and an enchanted book she had brought from home. For what felt like the thousandth time since she’d come here, she picked up the book. Her only connection to home. She wondered if Sora had the opposite one now. If she opened it, would she see messages? Would she…

Would Sora ask her to come home?

Hinoiri snorted and dropped the book on the desk before collapsing back onto her bed. Yeah. Right. As if. So, what. She could come back and spend the rest of her life living in that fool’s shadow? She’d made it incredibly clear what she thought of her. They all had. She’d show them. She’d prove them all wrong. She’d MAKE them see. She held up her right hand and coaxed the dark energy into her palm. She would destroy this world if she had to, but she WOULD be the sovereign she knew she was meant to be. She would prove, once and for all, that she was chosen for a reason. That she… that she was so much more than just ‘enough’.

======

“I see,” her teacher said before adjusting her glasses. The dragon stared at the scroll with a look of disappointment. “I… suppose this is enough.”

“Enough?” Hinoiri asked.

“Enough,” she said before drawing a small B+ on the scroll with her claw.

“I… don’t understand,” Hinoiri said, staring at the scroll. She’d followed instructions exactly. It worked. Half the students in her class couldn’t get it through the first step, she’d managed to get through all three.

“Ah, Hinoiri,” she said with an amused smile. “You’re the student of the Sovereign. She who controls the sky itself. While I know most of my fellow… instructors are happy to see you waste such an opportunity, I am not. You’ve managed to do enough to pass. Nothing more, nothing less. But from one who is trained by the Sovereign, I’d thought you’d be able to do more than just… enough.”

Hinoiri took the scroll and, feeling slightly numb, she made her way back to her seat. Enough. She was just enough. Only ever enough. Forever just enough…

But Sora had shown her, in the end.

Enough. Is never. Enough.

======

Hinoiri jumped from her bed, grabbing the small gemstone again. She was more than enough. She was everything. She would show ALL of them. The Realm of Kirakirafantastica would know her name from Clawsdale all the way to the Sora Sea. She needed to stop drifting into ‘fun’ and focus on what really, truly mattered.

Power.