CHAPTER 14 . DAWN OF THE CHRYSALIS
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Syndicate Mountain Compound
The mission takes place at a secret Syndicate base "deep in the mountains". Its approximate position was given by the tracker Konoko planted on Muro's VTOL plane in CHAPTER 05 . HOT PURSUIT (possibly Griffin was hiding that information to keep Konoko from going after Muro, for the same reasons as in CHAPTER 07 . A FRIEND IN NEED ). Konoko reaches the place in some sort of aircraft (Steve Abeyta said it was a plane on Oni Central Forum) and jumps down in a state of Daodan overpower.
Konoko lands on an airfield surrounded by watchtowers, and soon finds most of the installations are underground. She jacks an armored truck in the cargo bay and breaks through the blast doors, reaching the heart of the complex: a giant computer room, next to which is a silo with a concealed emitter. This system is supposed to uplink to an array of satellites and send a pulse to the ACCs worldwide, as the final phase of Muro's project STURMANDERUNG.
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Konoko reaches the mountain compound of Muro's group in the Syndicate, STURMANDERUNG. Surging with Daodan power and anger, she cleans out floor after floor of Syndicate troops, discovering the progressive phases of STURMANDERUNG's plans from consoles along the way.
She realizes that Muro is planning to reroute the Atmospheric Conversion Centers to pollute the air instead of cleansing it; a disaster from which only the Chrysalis can save humankind. Konoko theorizes, "He's planning to kill everyone who doesn't sell his soul to him for a Chrysalis." Konoko sees no other option than triggering Muro's plan prematurely, causing only some ACCs to fail and giving humanity longer to survive. She sabotages the dish that is supposed to broadcast the signal to scramble to ACCs.
Then, she heads to the rooftop to face Muro.
A: Muro faces her one-on-one, but transforms to his Imago state, the manifestation of the Chrysalis inside him. He proves to be monstrously powerful.
B: Muro chastises her for coming alone, when suddenly Griffin (in Black Ops armor such as he once wore regularly) and two Black Ops soldiers disembark from a helicopter. Konoko, Griffin and his men face off against Muro and many of his best subordinates.
Added value
It's surprising just how difficult the killed-Griffin scenario is. Singlehandedly facing un-transformed Muro and all the henchmen he summons in scenario B would be easier than the fight is with just Imago Muro. This could be seen as karmic retribution for Mai's actions (or a statement of morality by the game designers); she kills Griffin, and now she has no one to help her. But it's difficult to explain within the story why Muro transforms in ending A and not in ending B. How does Griffin being dead make a difference in whether Muro can/wants to transform? If anything, one would expect he would be more likely to try to reason with her in his normal form if she killed Griffin, since she might have a better chance of joining him. His Imago state would be more logically be used against a Mai who stood totally opposed to Muro's wanton killing, and thus would be used in scenario B against Mai, Griffin, and his Black Ops team.
Also, here is where we see what a person looks like if they have Muro's nature, since Kerr told Mai that one's nature determines the outcome of the transformation. It's not pretty. It does, however, resemble Barabas, albeit to a more extreme degree. There is also a possible tie-in, however unlikely, to the notion covered here, that a person taken with rage can become an oni, or demon (monster). This is Muro's true nature.
For more discussion of Muro's ultimate motives, see his page and this one.
Finally, we never see Mai's Imago state. Why not? She's had her Chrysalis about as long as Muro's had his, as far as we know. We can only speculate as to whether her transformation would be so monstrous, or so dramatic, or whether it would resemble the original Mai more closely, since she was not nearly as savage as Muro. Still, she wasn't a saint, so if one expects the Imago state to reflect how "pure" one is, she might well turn out to have a somewhat frightening appearance, if not so drastically as Muro did. It's possible that morality in any absolute sense is not a factor in the Imago state's appearance, but even if it is simply a matter of how much killing a Daodan host does, and the Chrysalis adapting to that life to make the host a more efficient killer, you could still expect Muro's nature as a wanton killer to make him more monstrous than Mai, even if she herself changed in a similar way.
Next...
Link to outro here (via splashscreen thumb).