let's stop and talk

A day after I finished watching XV, I came up with this wild script. As I alluded to in my impressions post, I really felt like Hibiki and Miku needed just one scene at the end to resolve the conflict presented in Ep5. That guilt, those unspoken feelings, is what set off so much of the final arc, but Miku's too busy being unconscious and Hibiki's too preoccupied with hero stuffs that neither of them give those feelings a second thought. Even when Hibiki was in her short-lived coma, her thoughts were all about losing Miku, nothing about the issues she brought up. When Miku does wake up, she references it in passing IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG and that's that—they don't even directly talk to each other until the bloody epilogue. I wanted more than anything for the two of them to hash it out and come to an understanding—something we literally saw back in SEASON 1—but there's no time for complicated feelings by the fifth (and final!!!) season so this is all the resolution we get.

So I drew all this.

It might be the Miku oshi in me speaking, but I really wanted Miku to be a more active participant in her rescue. We got a glimpse of that during the Miku/Shem-ha scene, but that literally didn't amount to anything outside some bondage fanservice idk. The main idea in this comic is that it's not just Hibiki's desire to save Miku that tempers her godslaying properties, it's also Miku's desire to be saved, whether she believes she deserves it—which I believe ties in nicely to the aforementioned guilt aspect. And because I'm such a sap, it's the articulation of love, the reflection on a life shared thus far that saves the day. Hibiki, finally vocalizing just how much Miku means to her after five whole seasons, declaring her eternal love in an all-or-nothing gambit to convince her to give living another chance. Just IMAGINE if this had happened in the series proper; HibiMiku would've gone down in history.

The script went through a few revisions. Even though I wanted them to go back and forth, there was too much so I trimmed it down some. That's partially why Hibiki has her outburst so early; the original had more of her trying to reason that it was a good thing Miku wasn't there, but that train just made the conversation loop around in circles. There were maybe two sections when the narrative could've benefited from a quiet/reflective panel, but a black void doesn't really lend itself well to the camera whipping over to focus on a ceiling or floor. And obviously, much of Hibiki's dialogue is inspired by "Kimi Dake ni". Some bits were actually too eloquent because I'm a very dramatic person so I dialed that back to better suit her voice.

I had so.much.fun drawing all the HibiMikus!!! (ღ˃̵ᴗ˂̵ღ) The middle school versions especially since I've never drawn them before. Hibiki is just so unbuff and tiny lol

Fun fact, that third panel was actually inspired by THE FREEDOM GUNDAM cuz I was rewatching SEED at the time lol. Very difficult to recreate when you've been actively avoiding drawing breasts cuz Precure and don't really have any idea how to draw them from different angles, let alone such an intimidating one >>;;;;

July 23-29, 2026, dA