Mia (.hack)

"Humans are very interesting, aren't they?"

- Mia

Mia (ミア, Mia) is a mysterious Blademaster that has the appearance of a cat. She has a fondness for Aromatic Grass and can usually be found alongside Elk.

Mia was originally Macha before Macha was destroyed and subsequentlly resurrected

Appearance
Unlike all other PCs in the R:1 version, she takes the form of a large humanoid cat with long rabbit like ears and a long tail. She is covered in bushy purple fur, green armor, and has no wave symbols, making her a unique sight within The World.

Personality
Mia is a very blunt character. She is known for speaking in riddles and rarely raises her voice. Mia enjoys finding and collecting Aromatic Grass, a useless item that has no effect. Despite having her memory erased she has vague recollections of being Macha, explaining her fondness for aromatic grass and her friendship with Elk who shares a character model with Tsukasa. She also has a habit of picking on Piros.

.hack//SIGN/AI buster 2

 * See Macha (Cat)

.hack//Games
When she first meets Kite, she immediately notices his Twilight Bracelet, which is supposed to be invisible. Mia and Elk join Kite after challenging him to come to the bottom floor of a dungeon alone at Δ Boundless Corrupted Fort Walls. She goes on to explain how Kite can use his bracelet to Gate Hack and bypass the barriers set up around Protected Fields, going to Δ Closed Oblivious Twin Hills to practice the abilities.. Following the defeat of Skeith, Mia begins to have problems. Her speech becomes distorted, a problem Kite and Elk attribute to a malfunctioning headset. They go to Λ Dolorous Evil Eyed Widow to find a solution. Mia's speech is temporarily fixed but becomes distorted once they get back to the Root Town. As Kite continues battling against the Phases Mia's condition only worsens. She begins to have amnesia, and wanders around the servers in a stupor. She also begins to show a strong aversion to Kite whenever he appears. Eventually Kite enters a dungeon where the Cursed Wave is supposed to be located. At the bottom he finds Mia and Elk. It is there that Mia's true nature is revealed. With an apology to Elk, Mia transforms into her true form, that of Macha the Temptress, the sixth Phase of the Cursed Wave. Despite his objections, Kite has no choice but to fight and defeat her. After the fight, Macha temporarily reappears as Mia. Elk attempts to help her, but she disappears anyway.

Later, a message from Aura leads Kite and Elk to a dungeon. At the bottom they find a Guardian, inside the Guardian is Macha, in cat form. Upon defeating the Guardian, Macha is reborn as Mia, though she has no memory of any of the events that occurred prior to her reawakening, excluding those of Elk.

She also appears in some of Piros's dungeons, which usually involves her tricking him into equipping a bugged item of some kind.

.hack//XXXX
Mia first appears in the streets of Mac Anu, some time after Skeith's defeat. Encountering Kite by chance, she approaches him with a frightening look in her eyes and states that his bracelet "smells like Skeith." When Kite asks Mia what she means, Mia suddenly is unable to recall having said anything, and does not even recognize the word Skeith, though it seems somehow familiar. Confused, she gates out, leaving Kite to ponder who or what she might be.

Mia's mind grows increasingly unstable as her awakening as Macha approaches, leading her to shun Elk in fear for his safety. After Gorre's defeat, Elk succeeds in finding her but Mia loses all self-control and attacks Elk, only to immediately snap out of her trance and realize what she did. When Kite and Cubia arrive, she loses what little will she has left, completing her transformation into Macha.

As Macha, she attacks Kite using her voice. Cubia distracts her while Kite uses his Data Drain, but he loses focus because of Elk and ends up only draining her arm. Elk tries desperately to bring Mia back to her senses by showing her the Aromatic Grass he collected for her. She briefly remembers him, but Morganna regains control. Cubia, ignoring Elk's pleas to spare her life, Data Drains her.

One of the extra art panels shown in the credits section shows Mia and Elk reunited in a field, implying that, like in the games, Aura brings Mia back.

.hack//Another Birth
During Another Birth Mia is mentioned by Elk, Kite, and NOVA. She later comes across BlackRose at the Dun Lorieag Grunty farm, and invites her to a party. They travel to Δ Bursting Passed Over Aqua Field. There she uses her powers to show BlackRose a vision of Orca's defeat at the hands of Skeith. When BlackRose questions her about why she sought her out, Mia responds that she "Smells like the Bracelet". Mia ignores BlackRose's later attempts to contact her (or more precisely the attempts fail all together and e-mails "bounce back"). The next time BlackRose meets Mia, she doesn't remember who BlackRose is and attacks her before NOVA intercepts her attack. Mia then backs off and looks for Elk.

In &Sigma; Outpouring Vengeful Sipping Bug, Mia tells BlackRose and Elk the story of Plaird of the seven sisters from the Epitaph of Twilight and kills a Data Bug with her sword. She starts to say something to Elk, but she vanishes. BlackRose later meets up with the two again and asks Mia about what she meant, but she has no memory of their previous adventure. Mia then invites BlackRose to search for Aromatic Grass at &Sigma; Scattered Her Footstep. When BlackRose asks why Mia collects Aromatic Grass, Mia says it might have something to do with her dreams in which she is called "Macha" and she is given the grass by a boy that looks like Elk.

Mia again disappears, only to be found at &Sigma; Graceful Tempting Fallen Angel, where she reveals that she has no memory of life outside The World and transforms into Macha. After the battle, Mia returns to her PC form briefly and says her goodbyes to Elk before disintegrating into data.

Mia is reborn after Kite, BlackRose, and Elk defeat the Temptress Lover at the bottom of the &Omega; Hidden Darkside Holy Ground dungeon. Although she remembers Elk, she has no memory of anything after the Cursed Wave started being more active.

.hack//Unison
Mia is seen hanging around with Elk as usual. Due to her erased memories, she does not recognize Tsukasa, but begins to cry when he brings out the Aromatic Grass he picked up when Macha was data drained. She later dances with Elk at Net Slum.

.hack//GIFT
Mia has a small scene in GIFT where she is seen in a field of flowers with Elk. Mia briefly sees Tsukasa and notices the similarities between him and Elk before Mimiru grabs Tsukasa and takes him away. Mia, then, gets closer to Elk and promptly proceeds to make out with him.

End of The World
As the carrier of the Sixth Phase, Mia was captured and destroyed by the programmer Jyotaro Amagi so that her Phase data could be extracted for the R.A. Plan.

.hack Conglomerate
While Mia doesn't directly make an appearance in G.U., she places a role in the story as The Avatar Macha, wielded by the user Endrance, previously known as Elk and who while in search for his lost friend mistakes the The AIDA Mia for the lost cat AI, falling into a deeper depression after loosing as well, but regaining himself through the efforts of Haseo and much later on than this, reuniting with fragments of original Mia which Endrance's senses through the Lost Weapon for his Avatar. According to e-mails you have with him, Endrance says he prefers to remember Mia as a "beautiful memory", one that he can cherish forever.

Trivia

 * While Mia was voiced by Debra Rogers in the Games, Kari Wahlgren was her voice actor in Unison and The End of The World.
 * Her weapon is called the 8 Phase Sword, a level 2 weapon and a reference towards the 8 Phases of the game, she being a form of the 6th Phase, Macha.
 * According to .hack//Archives_03 LIGHT EDITION She stands at 165 CM tall (5'4"), the same height as BlackRose
 * Mia's weapon in the Japanese version was the Kuronekodan no Ken, or "Black Cats Gang Sword." This is a reference to Tail Concerto, so originally the hint toward her connection to the 8 Phases did not exist.
 * Mia is the only player (aside from Orca) that cannot be brought to fight in any Phase battle.
 * Mia's character design is based on the Cheshire Cat.