June 6th, 2024 AD

Following in the tradition of Asato Asato, I decided I wanted to write an afterword for this fic. Probably artificially inflating my chapter numbers and word count, but whatever — it seems like the polite thing to do, especially after the fic that you've read.
I won't have the same levity, I won't pretend like this fic had a happy end — I will say however, I do appreciate you reading it, in its entirety. This was a few month-long project, and is probably my most ground-breaking piece of writing to date. I added a date, just to show when I was writing this fanfic. I will say that the last bit of writing I did for Witch of the Eighty-Sixth was actually on the night of June Third, but I wanted to stew in my own writing before publishing it all. Make sure I was actually happy with the product I made, and things like that.
In all honesty, I don't have much to say, that I haven't already said in the text — although there are some questions that I think deserve being answered here, which I hope to do. Hopefully by reading this afterword, you can get some insight into some of the "how" and "why" that went into this fic.
"What made you write about a Witch from Mercury and Eighty-Six crossover?"
Well, that answer's quite simple, and I somewhat touched on it in the foreword. But it was while I was working on a Gundam Writer's Zine, and I realized that Miorine Rembran, somewhat fits the same archetype of an Alba, and from there, wondered how the rest of the Witch from Mercury cast fit in. Of course I wasn't all-inclusive in my decisions. Not everyone in WFM is a pilot, and not everyone fits as a mechanic — although I think there's enough room for you to wonder how some of the other minor characters fit in. Namely Shaddiq's VALKYRIEs, I had initially intended to find a way to explain who each person was, and have that be conclusive that Renee, Henao, Maisie and Ireesha were part of VALKYRIE and consequently The Witch's Familiars — but there wasn't a natural way to do that, with what I wanted to do. So I went without. I do apologize. But I did have them plotted initially, and even had their callsigns and races in Eighty-Six plotted.
I'll drop that here.
Squad Combat Commander: Shaddiq "Mastermind" Zenelli - Mixed Jade and Sapphira
Platoon B Leader/XO: Sabina "Bluebird" Fardin (Reference to The Morrigan) - Pureblood Iola
Platoon C Leader: Renee "Two-Tone" Costa (Play off of her design, which has one leg of her shorts rolled up) - Emeraud
Platoon D Leader: Henao "One-Eye" Jazz (Play off of her bangs) - Veridia and Viola
Platoon E Leader: Maisie "Mayday" May (Play off of her name) - Veridia
Platoon E SIC: Ireesha "Scheu" Plano (Shy [Adjective] in German) - Rubis

"Why kill off Miorine?"
Well, asides from the angst of it all, which would be the obvious answer — it gave a natural conclusion to the story. Something I think that Eighty-Six (the light novels) do, and even the Anime does, is have these natural breakpoints where it makes the most sense to end the story, and have a 'complete' story. Namely, after Shin and Spearhead destroy Shourei Nouzen's Shepard, and leave the Eighty-Sixth District behind. That would've been a good place to do it as well, and since that's where Volume 1 ends — you can see how that would be a breakpoint.
For Suletta, I didn't want to tell a story of hers, that spans the entire duration of Eighty-Six's Light Novels. I couldn't see a way to tell stories in that, that weren't already told by Asato Asato in the consequential Volumes, without deviating heavily away from the plot of those Volumes. So it made the most sense to have a minor deviation — and tell a story that seemed to be more emotional, and was something I would want to read.
I have no qualms with Miorine's character, and I'm actually quite fond of her — but it did make the most sense, to have her be a Shepard rather than just a Black Sheep. Shepards are single-copies, Black Sheep are multiple, or at least that's how I understand it. You see Kaie's ghost come back several times in Eighty-Six, and I didn't want to have that same case, despite the introduction of the Sheepdogs at the end of Volume 4.

"What happened to Pharact? To Shaddiq?"
Pharact, in case you didn't pick up on this — is supposed to be Elan-5, and is a character who I can't see returning to the Battlefield after the events of the Legion's Large-Scale Offensive. I would be lying if I said that I didn't also have him slip my mind when I was plotting out CALIBARN, but it also opens him up to be a character I can explore the world with, outside of the Legion War.
Shaddiq ends up being picked up by a Federacy patrol, and is brought back to Sankt Jeder, but opts to not return to the battlefield, especially in light of knowing that he'd only be helping the White Pigs. He doesn't want to do that, he wants to further his own ends. He told VALKYRIE to follow The Witch, so they follow her back to the battlefield.

"Where's all the original characters from?"
Haha, well, they happen to be my friend's original characters, or my own. Especially in CALIBARN, where they have more significance.
My own original characters are Monarch, Ender, and Rhino. With a few others in LFRITH, like Fallen Crow and Mizu, who are minor characters, and aren't really "original characters".
My friend's original characters are Trivium, Wraith, Cupid, Redline, Oni, Priest, Crossbow, Diesel, MOPs, and Tomcat.
Thank you to Chris, Lilith, Kara, Artemis, Josh, Snazz, Canadian, Victoria and Sarah (not in order) for letting me torture your blorbos.
I hope it wasn't too jarring to see names that weren't exactly from one canon or another!

Honestly, that's all I really wanted to say in this afterword. Thank you so much for reading, and coming back again and again as I updated this fic. And please keep a look out for additional stories in this series. I do have at least two planned, and may have more if I see a reason to do so. Charlie-One, and Fragmental Neoteny: The Witch Named Mercury are in progress, please keep an eye out for them!
Thank you so much for reading this to the end, and I hope to see you all in future fics!

Music playing while writing this afterword: "Curse" by
Architects
References: Eighty-Six, Volumes 1 & 4 by Asato Asato