A bleak situation with no way out, and an endless war indeed.
Yuuki Yuuna is not a Hero. Yuuki Yuuna is a soldier. A child soldier. in an endless war.
Here's my wild speculation of the ending.
I think when push comes to shove, Yuuna will side with the Taisha - even if indeed they are going to be sacrifices, because the alternative is humanity's wholesale annihilation as a species, Yuuna strikes me as the type that would see such sacrifices as worth it. She might even be converted into the Utilitarianism the Taisha embrace, for understandable reasons.
While Togo destroying the system for good and triggering the extinction of humanity, and an "End of Evangelion" style ending might result could be very possible, I forsee another, bleaker ending. Yuuki Yuuna becomes the "Hero" in the truest sense of the word, executing her best friend, Togo for the betrayal. In the aftermath, Yuuna Mankais twenty times to win the battle. After that, millions are dead, property damage is severe, Yuuna sanges severely, and comes to a grim conclusion, completely opposite of Togo. The system must not only be maintained, but made more resilient to another incident like Togo.
If employing child soldiers, "Heroes" are necessary, and such deployments come at a severe cost to the heroes, one option might be to narrow the number of Heroes involved. The second option, would be to instead spread the burden among Heroes, and raise an "Army of Heroes" for the defense of humanity, that way, the Mankai burden can be more widely distributed, rather than forcing a small handful of girls into Mankai and the complete destruction of her body.
So, using her powers as a demi-goddess,leveraging on further tech advances, she rewrites doctrine and tries honesty for a pilot batch of the next heroes- for the vast majority of Yuushas of lower aptitude, Karin serves as an example - Mankai aversion is preferable. the heroes would be warned that Mankai comes with a price that may or may not be permanent - remember, Yu only broke because of Itsuki.
She refrains from telling them, right at the start of the endless number of Vertexes - she would set the number higher and she would wait to observe how some heroes react to more than one Mankai, before telling them the truth - they are soldiers in an endless war for humanity's survival. Furthermore, she would not allow any Heroes to learn the truth about Vertexes, without the observation of someone who has already accepted that truth, Smartphone ready, and ready to step in case that younger Hero cannot accept the grim truth of the endless war. Preferably, a Hero would not have to learn the truth until she's sufficiently mature enough to accept the truth. 14 years olds tend to be very, very poor cases at accepting the truth.
Finally, she makes the Heroes club as a Front for Yuusha recruitment even more explicitly. She would try to interconnect the various Heroes clubs together, to give a sense of camaraderie and espirit d'corps among the various Heroes club.
In other words, she would make research into the possibility of a mass-army of Heroes, while preventing a repeat of Togo's insane betrayal possible. She will steel her heart, and offer it as the sacrifice of being the "Hero" of humanity, by reforming the Hero system.
Why is it that some people are willing to join armies and die for their country gladly? These peoples may well be the best suited to be Heroes - willing to pay the price in service to humanity. Yuki Yuuna IS a Hero, and will be at all cost. Humanity is in an endless war and Yuuki Yuuna shall be the Captain of it's Heroes. |