Macha (Cat)

"Stay away from Tsukasa."

- Macha

Macha (マハ) is the cat character that appears in .hack//SIGN and other .hack series. Although she appears to be a typical hacker or Vagrant AI, she is actually an alternate form of the Phase Macha.

Appearance
Macha was known for wearing a wizard-style hat and human clothes. Physically, she was a white and purple cat with red eyes.

Abilities
Her known abilities are hovering, teleporting between fields and controlling at least Tsukasa's Guardian.

Personality
Macha is usually playful and curious, though she is also obedient to the will of Morganna and is perfectly willing to fight her enemies. In spite of this, she is the only Phase to betray her goal.

Wotan's Spear
Macha has a brief appearance in Wotan's Spear, where she commands a guardian to Data Drain the System Administrator Albireo to keep him from approaching Tsukasa. It is shown here that even though Macha does not speak, her words are shown in the player's chat box.

.hack//SIGN
Morganna sent Macha to look after Tsukasa and ensure that he didn't want to leave The World. As time passed, Macha started to become fond of Tsukasa and felt sympathy towards him when Morganna started punishing him both mentally and physically. In one episode, after Tsukasa was abused by Morganna, he gave Macha a stalk of Aromatic Grass. This kindness caused Macha to turn against Morganna. She used her control over Tsukasa's Guardian to defend Tsukasa from the Twilight Vagrant sent to destroy him. Later, she sacrificed herself to defeat the three Vagrants sent to attack Tsukasa and Subaru in the Hulle Granz Cathedral.



.hack//Games
Kite and Elk encountered Macha within the bonus dungeon of .hack//Quarantine. They follow the AI to the bottom of the dungeon where Macha becomes held captive inside of the Twilight Vagrant/Temptress Lover. After it is defeated, Macha is freed and transforms into Mia. After the resurrection is complete, Mia has lost all of her memory.

.hack//Another Birth
Macha's role in Another Birth is the same as in the games.

Trivia

 * The Aromatic Grass Macha often is seen with in SIGN can be seen as a symbol of her memories of Tsukasa or their friendship.
 * As seen in .hack//AI buster 2, Macha's silence seems to be due to the fact that she communicates entirely in text. So, even though she doesn't actually speak, players are still able to understand her by reading their chat bars.
 * Macha's gender is never given, but because her title is "The Temptress," has a female-sounding scream when she is Data Drained, and is reborn as the Female PC Mia, female pronouns are used for the purpose of this article. Note: Her scream can only be heard in the Japanese audio.