With the beginning of my tragic, nonsensical, and out of order story told, you know as much as I do. I can hardly bme you if you feel lost by the string of utter nonsense I've subjected to you has left you feeling completely lost, but I have very little sympathy for you, and I wouldn't even if I wasn't just maimed. Simply imagine what I'm feeling, dismembered, discombobuted, dishonored, and disheveled. Dis is a bad position to be in, that was an awful attempt at what they call gallows humor, I apologize for dat. I mean, THAT.

  I'm left aghast, staring down at the girl, sprawled out on the stairs before me, as we stand deep in the crimson bowels of Naraka. Her azure eyes blinking rapidly, as she meets my own gaze, expecting something of me. She just told me to shut the hell up, what does she want, a tongue shing? I may be a bit of a sadist, delighting in the deserved misery of others from time to time, but I'm not the stuffy sort of character who pys off of the ridiculous archetype of nonsensical idiots.

  Getting a better look at her, despite her messy hair, her bangs are oddly groomed, odd in the sense that it doesn't quite fit the rest of her. Straight, blunt, square? I'm not fashionable, I only have 4 outfits at most, so forgive my cking terminology. Her big blue eyes are like a curious animals, not an atom of malice behind their vapid haze. She tilts her head, her mouth curling into a smile that raises in it's center, looking like a cat's grin, did I fall into wondernd or something?

  "Huh?" Her cutesy cadence is almost distracting now, having just been in such a hellish pce. She suddenly looks down, staring at her body for some reason. "Hmm..."

  The girl, without much telegraphing of her movements, raises up, standing with her back facing me. Now that she's stood, I can tell that I was correct, she is quite tall, looking only in actuality to be 170cm with room for error of course. Guess standing up helped me measure her, that's on me for trying to speak in absolutes about someone's height. People who do that are almost always wrong. She raises her left leg forward, and dramatically spins in pce, smming her foot down onto the concrete step. She is a few steps below where I'm stood, meaning she has to look up at me from where I'm stood. "I see, I see..." She mutters to herself, leaving me in the dark as to what exactly she sees.

  Without losing her feline-esque grin, the girl tilts her head to her left. Her blue eyes shifting all over in my general direction, scanning me as if I was a piece of art worth mulling over the details of.

  "You're covered in blood, and your sleeve's gone." She astutely points out, as if my ck of an arm isn't the more eye catching thing.

  "What happened to you?"

  What happened to me?! I had my arm cut off! What kind of moron asks someone who's been maimed such an insensitive question! Enraged, I feel my face twist into a sneer.

  "What do you think, dumbass!? My arm is missing!" I shout, pointing to my stub, while looking directly at her. "Are you blind, stupid, or making fun of me!?"

  The girl's smile fades, hopefully because she's just realized how rude she is, or delusional, or whatever you'd call her. Oddly, however, her smile changes into a confused stare, her eyes looking oddly gzed over. She raises left arm up, and pushes her index finger up against her bottom lip, colored pink with a light sheening of gloss.

  "What do you mean? It's still there?" Her line of questioning only serves to fuel my anger, does she mean that in the pedantic sense? I suppose my bicep is still there, but my forearm is gone!

  Au revoir.

  "No, it's not! I just saw it get cut off!" I shout, downright furious.

  The girl simply shakes her head, and uses the finger she had prodded her lip with to point at my arm.

  "No, I'm looking right at it." She says, observing my arm with a light intrigue unbefitting the severity of my wound. "Just look at it again."

  A prochaine.

  I raise my nub up, finding that

  Retour

  Fait pour quelqu'un, quelque chose de repartir, de revenir vers l'endroit d'où il est venu ; dépcement, voyage ainsi accompli : Il va falloir penser au retour.

  My severed arm is back, returned back to my upper arm.

  Bonjour.

  I abruptly stumble backwards, staring at my returned arm, only baring a scratch on my elbow, a deep gash easily covered. My poor attempt at stopping blood flow to my wound is now painfully wrapped around my arm, strangling it. I feel a tightness in my chest growing, I can hardly look at this anomaly. How? That's all I can ask, how? The simple question grips my brain, like a cw rooting around in my skull, pulling apart the gray matter to mull over every detail of every atom.

  A misunderstanding. My arm simply was cut, but the bleeding was so severe I merely thought I'd had it severed. Bullshit, I saw it ying on the ground!

  Hallucination, I merely imagined my severed arm falling. The pain I felt in the moment caused a chemical reaction in my optical lobe, I've never felt that sort sensation before so my brain created a hallucination to go alongside it. Mere specution, I've never even heard of something like that!

  Hysteria induced hallucination? A panic attack, one that I'm still feeling the grips of? No, no, no! Nothing makes sense, I saw it, felt it, heard it, I can still smell it. I know my arm was cut off, I know it! How the hell, wait.

  That's exactly why.

  "A cut that shallow doesn't need a tourniquet." The girl's voice pulls me from my own inner hell, reminding me of the painful fact that my descent has a passenger.

  "I saw it get cut off." My tone is ragged, dry, hopeless.

  "That's not possible," The girl shakes her head, still showing that same smile, like a cat enjoying the squirming of a rat beneath it's paw. "what likely happened was a hallucination. What cut you likely struck sensitive nerves in your inner elbow."

  She approaches me, and deftly unties the shoddy attempt I'd dispyed to save my own life. "This sort of cut seems to have damaged your nerves, in a way that caused numbness leading up and down your arm. Which made your mind believe you were maimed more severely." The girl then carefully ties my bzer's sleeve around my cut, not too tight like before. "See a doctor about it soon, and you'll be fine."

  I feel my eyelids stretch open, my eyebrows raise up. This girl, currently examining my arm, knows a considerable amount about the human body. She's using basic terminology, but is considering avenues I likely I couldn't have myself.

  "It's not so simple." I answer, pulling my arm back.

  The girl's curious glint remains ever bright, as she watches me intently, gripping my bzer in one hand, left dangling above the floor.

  "That's not simple at all, actually. The human brain and it's inner workings aren't fully understood, even now." Her retort is fast, sharp. Despite her bubbly air, she's dangerously smart it would seem.

  "Ciming to be a master of the inner workings of your mind will only lead you to panic, you know."

  "This isn't about my mind pying tricks on me!" I manage to get my retort out, unable to contain my frustrations with this girl. How the hell can she act like it was all in my head!?

  "We're trapped in an endless stairwell! The only door leading to some... deathtrap, run by an invisible thing that cut my arm off!" I stammer out, my brow furrowing. "We're not in a logical reality anymore! Do yo know where we are!?"

  "Hell?" The girl asks me, her innocent smile returning. Her tone is so gentle, innocent, like she'd answered a joke correctly. "That's what you think, right? We're trapped in hell, being hunted by a demon for eternity?"

  How did she know? That was exactly what I was about to say, almost verbatim. It seems my shock has become clear on my face, my mouth likely hanging open like a dope.

  "I guessed correctly, then. I figured by your wording you wanted to explore the supernatural angle, and went with the most commonly known terminology used for a bad afterlife." The girl steps backwards, towards the railing behind her. She sits on top of the steel rail, gripping it to stay banced atop, letting her legs hand as she meets my gaze.

  "Hell matches the description of where we are as well, a torturous existence, unable to progress at all..." She leans her head back, that same innocent smile still on, as she kicks her legs back and forth. "But you're forgetting something, we currently exist in some way, meaning we are bound by reality."

  "Do you think that matters for hell?" This girl is simply baffling.

  "Anything that exists must obey the fundamental rules of existence, matter cannot simply appear, not without a definite cause." She looks down, her sky blue eyes meeting mine, not an ounce of uncertainty. "Hell defies any possible rules of existence, as do demons as you understand of them. Immortal, unchanging beings, incapable of escaping from. Not even forces of nature can be described that way..."

  "Then what was out there, what cut me? Or are you going to say I imagined that too!?" I find myself screaming at her, my protesting echoing throughout our surroundings. "You saw what was in there, you know how we got here! How do you expin how we ended up in an infinite stairwell!?"

  "I don't know, and I can't expin anything." She seems far too calm for this. "It seems as if the space we occupy is obeying the concept of infinity, something that as far as humanity can understand, cannot truly exist..."

  She admitted she has about as much of a clue as I do as to what exactly we're dealing with. Well, I'd say I know a bit more than her.

  NARAKA

  "Naraka?" The girl asks me, it seems I said that out loud. "The Sanskrit spelling of Naraku, the Buddhist hell. I'm curious as to why you said that, instead of Hell, or Naraku..." The girl raises her left hand up, putting her thumb under her bottom lip. "I take it then you assume Raurava, or the Screaming Hell, considering we're both Japanese..." The girl lowers her hand, pushing herself off of the railing slightly. She leans to her left, looking off to the side, with that same pyful look in her eyes. "It's rather bold to tell a girl to her face she's in a level of hell where killers, thieves, and perverts are subjected to molten copper poured down their throats." I hadn't thought of the implication, saying that about myself is one thing, but someone else is worrisome. "Are you saying that I am a pervert? That's quite the assumption..."

  "N-No! I was thinking the Kasutra." Why the hell would she take it that way anyhow!? Though, she knows a considerable amount about Buddhism, she's certainly well read....

  "We're on the 4th level, though." She very fairly points out, I didn't even consider that the number was important to our situation. "Were we trapped on the 2nd floor, I'd see your logic. But it seems that biases are coloring your perception."

  "You have me there."

  "You would have been correct in assuming my perversion, by the way. I frequent the adult section at my bookstore so often, I've left imprints of my feet in their carpet..." How long would you have to stand around looking at porn to do that!? "I also hope to see a sex scene in every movie I see, especially if it interrupts the flow of the story..." Who wants actively wants that!?! "And if I ever feel the need to satisfy a womanly urge, I do so for 3 days straight without food or water." How is she still alive!?!?

  "That's great, but off topic." I say.

  "Is it? If you're right, and we're trapped in Katsutra, we may as well get to know eachother for the centuries we'll be trapped together here..." She gives me a new look, a different sort of pyful than before.

  "You just said we can't be in hell, because it doesn't exist."

  "I didn't say hell, I said Kasutra, a part of Naraka..." She's getting on my nerves again!

  "Why does terminology matter when we're talking about the logic of the afterlife?"

  "Why terminology saves lives, knowing the difference between venomous and poisonous for example. A poisonous mushroom can kill you if ingested, but a venomous one isn't as likely."

  "When has there EVER been a venomous mushroom?"

  "I see, so that's why you're here at a library..." Don't get the wrong idea about me, especially from your own bit! Huh, I'm having a bit of fun, talking to this girl. That's not what I'd expected, since I'm in the bowels of Naraka.

  "In this case, however, terminology doesn't really matter..." This woman! She just contradicted herself! "Hell has no part of reality, and considering how we exist here, we are in some way chained to the ws of existence..." The girl jumps forward, standing a few meters away from me.

  "The pce we're in defies any sort of logical sense, I don't think that matters much." Maybe this is a sign, if I'm going to be trapped in hell, being stuck with someone who's a fun conversational partner isn't so bad.

  "Were you often called stupid as a child?" Nevermind, this woman is going to drive me insane. "It's not a matter of logic, but of basic cognitive abilities..."

  "I don't see this pce as Hell, Naraka, Naraku, Kur, or even Qlippoth." She says, looking up at me. "I see it as a library we can't escape from. But every library has an escape, unlike Hell."

  "So what? You think we can escape if our mindset's right?"

  "In a way, yes. We are naturally curious creatures, ones that want to understand all that is around us. Accepting such an unfair fate is idiotic."

  "D-do you have a way out?"

  The girl shakes her head, crushing my hopes. "Not at the moment, no. But I believe this pce has something to do with how we see it..."

  Without warning, the girl grabs my arm, her soft, delicate hands wrapping around my forearm and wrist. "You had assumed that your arm was cut off, not assumed, more were convinced..." She feels up my arm, kneading her thumb into my muscle, sure enough I don't feel much running up to my elbow. "Whatever's keeping us here wants us to understand it, observe it properly. It makes sense, logically speaking."

  The girl lowers down, and gently bites on my pinky.

  "H-hey!" I shout, pulling my arm back. The girl snickers pyfully, giggling at the admitted embarrassment such an action caused me. "It's also how I know we're not in Naraku, or any sort of afterlife like it." Her pyful air still hasn't left her, even as she's discussing a potential damnation. "Let's suspend our disbelief for a moment, and assume that whatever is holding us here is able to create a scenario where we believe we're trapped in an infinite stairwell, one guarded by an invisible monster threatening our lives." She leans backwards, looking up at the concrete ceiling. "Why did it take someone else observing your arm to have it reappear? Someone who hadn't seen the attack."

  "If we're in Kasutra, torturing us mentally and physically is the entire point. It wanted me to think I was crazy." I defend, rationalizing the horrors I'm buried neck deep in."Then why leave a scratch?"

  Why leave a scratch? Because it... that really doesn't make much sense with the scenario I made up. It'd be better to completely heal me, restoring my limb to make it seem like I was insane, having made up a monster in my own head. "As I mentioned, existence has fundamental rules, ones that aren't as iron cd as you might think, sure, but impossible to bypass. Flying isn't the denial of gravity, but exerting enough force to attain lift off. Going to a different pnet may seem like the scale of time has changed entirely, but in reality it's merely just days differing on every pnet."

  "Your point?" I ask, how exactly can I follow this unhinged babbling? Maybe if I focus hard enough she'll feel the need to eborate?

  "The reason I know we're not in Naraku is that we exist in those rules, rules that could oppose our suffering." She runs her left index finger up her jawline, stopping on her left earlobe. "Cognition being one of them. You perceived your arm being cut off, but since I only saw you covered in blood, I observed a man who was merely injured." She runs her finger down, stopping on the center of her chin.

  "What the hell does that even mean? You're applying logic to a situation that can't have any!" My shouting merely intrigues her more.

  "So is that why you never asked my name?" She asks, a sudden change in topic, but a fair enough observation. "It's only logical to exchange greetings with someone you've just met, you know. Even if you think you're trapped in hell, you should be a good boy like what's expected of you." What am I a dog? Well considering the fact that I was checking out her legs, the bel of dog is probably fitting of me. You know, I could refuse callously.

  "I refuse!" I'd say, looking up at her, as she hangs over my shoulder.

  It might seem cool actually, promising to only introduce ourselves after we escape. But this isn't a story, nor is it's ending foreseeable. And I'm not the charming hero who could deliver such a line properly anyhow.

  "W-what's your name?" I ask, what a me way to ask, I put more charisma into purchasing of my train ticket.

  "Huh? You haven't heard of me?" You asked me to ask you! "I'm joking... Amagami Ikue!" She says, reaching out, and grabbing my wrist again.

  Huh?

  AMA GAMI IKU E

  I do know her, quite well. As I've said before, I'm a major in the liberal arts, how can't I know her name. Amagami Ikue, the youngest person in Japan to ever receive a Master's Degree, in Quantum Physics no less. Everyone on the forums I frequent, college students, teachers, even some of the general public talk about her!

  The 19 year old super genius, who graduated at the age of 14, who rose so quickly in the academic community she's built up an actual fanbase. From what I've read; she's given seminars on topics ranging from prehistorical anthropology, to ancient Chinese poetry, and even a full on analysis and debunking of over 400 proposed methods of time travel.

  Even her name is special, composing of the Characters; Heaven, God, to rise or learn depending on the reading, and the river Yangtze. A goddess of knowledge, learning. The Ascended Goddess of the River of Learning, or as her fans call her TenshiTensai-chan, TT-chan. I never really payed attention to pictures of her, but seeing her in person, her natural cuteness and charisma is almost distracting.

  "Yours? For the sixth time?" She says, snapping me from my stupor. Had she really been asking my name repeatedly, or was that another way of messing with me?

  I didn't consider that she'd ask for mine, how stupid of me, how arrogant of me even. I'm working, there's no way I can give my real name, and there's absolutely no way a genuine celebrity can know my name. Imagine if she started talking about me, naming the weirdo she met wandering around the endless library she escaped from!

  "Red...man." The stupid codename I'm forced to go by online. My original name I went by was AKAMAN, Archiver Man, English spelt out in Katakana. I picked it to sound nondescript online, recounting discoveries I made about the case I've devoted my life to, so as to remain nameless, faceless. The people of the forums took it as Red Man, however, using the English word for red. It starting as a way to mock me but quickly became something I was solely referred to as, which caused Akaman to become a forgotten memory, one that if I tried to use would get me ignored, unlike Redman. Well, for all five posters who frequent my threads, at least.

  Amagami tilts her head curiously, her eyes looking deep into mine with a wide fascination, did I manage to take her off guard with my me codename?

  "It's a pleasure, Man-kun." Nevermind, this girl might very well just be a gullible imbecile!

  "Don't say that like you're using my given name! We just met!" I demand, offended by her overly casual nature. Offended, or simply embarrassed, the idea of this girl saying my real name is enough to make me quiver. In shame? Fear for retribution? Maybe I could chalk it up to the ultimate virgin still deep in me shuddering at the idea of a woman calling me my name is enough to make me melt.

  "I'm not calling you your given name? Then that means you gave me a pseudonym..." Ghhk! A trick, an underhanded, dastardly one! She called me that to call me out on my obvious code name. "Is there a reason you won't say your real name, then?"

  "Chalk it up to me acting illogically, considering where we are."

  "But you were quite logical just now, being reminded of your manners, correcting them, and even feeling embarrassed over my nickname for you. If you're truly a resident of hell, why not act like an irrational sinner?"

  "How exactly would I do that by YOUR standards? Start floating around, age 40 years in a second, start teleporting around?!"

  "Are you calling Son Goku a sinner? He's able to ride the Kinto'un, though. Or are you trying to imply something about a Japanese treasure?" What happened to the sword, mirror, and jewel? When did an anime character repce them?!

  "I'm obeying your logic! And at least he uses some kind of energy to teleport!"

  "Then why not use your own, since this is your hell as much as it is mine. Why not earn your pce here and stab me to death?"

  "Don't encourage murder, even if it's your own!"

  "Why not act like a pervert and demand I step on your face?"

  "What kind of me command is that, and I think your fans would tear this pce apart to kill me again! And don't think I didn't notice that, we're not in Raurava!"

  "Oh, we aren't? Then why not take the css's lunch money?"

  "What am I 10!?"

  "Eat pasta with your fingers."

  "That's just gross!"

  "Take my cherry?"

  "I just said we're not in the ring for sexual deviants!"

  "Huuh? I meant off of my sundae? Are you thinking dirty thoughts?"

  I turn around, and sm my forehead on the wall behind me. This woman! Who does she think she is, a boke in a comedy duo!?

  Thunk...

  No, a boke isn't a goddamn sadist! Wait I'm the sadist here, I'm the one who should be making the jokes that make her get flustered!

  Thunk...

  Instead I'm bashing my head against a wall, because the greatest young genius in Japan is a horny minded moron with the sense of humor of an unfunny dad and a 3rd grader! Why am I bashing my head against a wall anyhow?

  "Are we trying to break the wall to get out of here? I think your skull is going to break first, you know?" Amagami says, standing to my right, as I press my head against the wall. "Are you enjoying torturing me mentally, Amagami-san?" I say in the form of a low grumble, this girl is something else. Wait, if this is torture, maybe she's a manifestation of my torment?

  "Torture? Aren't you much calmer now, though?"

  I pull my head back, taken aback by her cim, but stop as I meet her eyes. Sincere, her long shes fluttering as she blinks. She was distracting me, making a long rambling nonsensical conversation to calm me down? I... do actually feel calmer, I was so frazzled before I couldn't even form a coherent thought. Amagami Ikue, did you pn this out?

  "You had me worried, but I didn't want that to compound your stress, you know. Man-kun." She leans her back against the wall, her shoulder by my head.

  "Why is me panicking something you felt the need to address?" I pull my head back, and stand opposite her.

  Amagami crosses her arms, a docile look in her deep eyes. "Why do I need a reason?"

  "I see, that's fair." I say, that makes a lot of sense.

  "It is? I was just going on about logic, reminding you to act on it. Why is such a vague illogical answer satisfying?" What kind of question is that? And you were the one who said it.

  "Humanity doesn't need to live by logic. We do a lot of illogical things everyday, it's who we are."

  Amagami's smile fades, ever so slightly, did that upset her? "I suppose you're right..." She looks off to the side, no longer looking at me. "Though, I guess that makes you a sinner, by my logic..."

  "What?"

  "Don't worry about it!" She says, reaching out and poking my nose harshly, pushing the tip upwards. "I wanted you to be calm so you could test a hypothesis of mine."

  "You have a hypothesis?!" Here I am getting so excited, hadn't I just accepted damnation for what I've done? Why am I so giddy?

  Ah, that makes sense. Looking at this genuinely kind girl, stuck in this neverending staircase, it feels unfair, unearned, just pin wrong. I'm not eager to leave, I'm eager to see her get out. If she does, the human race will really benefit from having her, she could do a lot with what time she has. Nothing like me. Maybe, she could find a way to get those people back. Some phenomenon that could bring them all back. Could him back.

  Just looking at her, it's pin to tell how different we are. All I am is just a recorder, someone who's here to see the greatness of humanity shine. She on the other hand is the innovator, the chariot pulling forth the sun. She's the sun, and I'm the window you look through to see it.

  Is that really all I want?

  What? I didn't think that. What a weird thought to pop up into my head. What nonsense is my brain making up at a time like this? Though I guess that's the point of an intrusive thought.

  POINK!

  Suddenly, Amagami reaches forward, and flicks my nose extremely hard, sending my head reeling back.

  "Ow! That freaking hurt!" I decre, gripping my slightly sore nose.

  "You drifted off again, so I pulled you back to reality, Man-kun." That's fair, a simple shoulder nudge would have done the job, though.

  "What Hypothesis do you have, exactly?"

  Amagami steps to the top of the stairs, putting her finger on the side of her jaw. "It's reted to your arm, actually. I have had two moments in which cognition of the only people here affected this closed space." She says, looking back at me with that same almost aloof smile. "This isn't my area of expertise, cognition I mean. But in a way, it also is."

  "Quantum Mechanics!" She shouts, raising her hand up, and grabbing her gsses by the rim. "Or rather a crude understanding of them, which I'm certain is the most you know of them anyhow."

  "I'm not an idiot I know how Quantum Mechanics work!"

  "Oh, well that's a relief! I'd rather be the doomed love interest who dies in the middle of the story than a expositionary character who expins the mechanics of a setting!" How and why is that better!?

  "I'm not speaking about the general concept of Quantum Mechanics, rather, how we understand and observe matter on an atomic and subatomic level." Amagmi's slender fingers pull her big rimmed gsses off of her face, holding them in a pinching position. With her gsses off I can see more of why so many people call her distractingly beautiful, not to imply her gsses hindered that. Merely without them to hold my eyes, I've found myself admiring her soft rosy cheeks, her big blue eyes, the slight freckling she has under just above her cheekbones. She's stunning, and really fricking cute.

  "The Observer Effect?"

  "Precisely, the human ability to observe, to witness something cognitively, is the means by which we understand the world around us." She pces the end of her gsses' temple on her bottom lip. "You don't know how much battery your phone has until you look at it, you can't tell if the cat is dead or alive until you remove the lid," She inhales suddenly, looking deep into my eyes. "you can't be certain how a system is behaving until observed..."

  The Observer Effect when viewed in the lens of Quantum Physics is different, yet simir to how it's used in previous examples. The cat IS either alive or dead inside the box, emphasis on the or used in the sentence. The understanding of Quantum Physics through the lens of the Observer Effect posits that while unobserved, the target of the incoming viewing is more like a wave, spread out over space and time, existing as it is. Upon being observed, however, the target becomes a particle, a phenomenon situated in one pce, in both space and time.

  Is she implying that while here we're acting as the target of observation? Waves in an undetermined pce in space and time?

  "I see where you're getting at, but I know that my arm was cut off."

  "You do? Did you see it for a fact that it was?" Amagami tilts her head to the side as she speaks.

  I know what I saw, I saw my arm... Wait. I hear a thud, the sound of flesh hitting the ground, and I saw the sleeve of my bzer. I didn't see the hand, only where it was cut.

  "But I saw a stump! I even treated it!"

  "I could swear that the cat was dead when I opened the box, but you could disprove it by touching it to see if it was breathing..."

  She disproved the cognition that my arm was cut off by poking it? But she must have seen me coming in gushing blood, with a stump! I gnce behind Amagami, at the pce where she was resting just a bit ago. From where she was ying, the only part of me she could see would be above my shoulders. In other words, she only saw me from above my wound and made the observation that I was just hurt, not maimed. What are we in!?

  "How is any of this possible?" I ask, grabbing my temples and pulling on my messy bck hair. "Who trapped us in this pce? What kind of powers would you have to have to make reality obey cognition like this!?"

  "The power of being a human, I guess." Amagami's tone is happy, like she just shared an amusing fact, instead of a dreadful sentiment.

  Wait, she said two examples, but there's only one that I can think of that has happened since I met her. "What was the secon-"

  Amagami sticks her hand out, raising a finger up. "Not now, after I show you the working of a genius mind." No genius should call themselves a genius, you arrogant loon.

  Amagami steps to her side, and peers down the center of the stairwell, over the railing. Her eyes looking almost green as she's absorbed by the now overwhelmingly yellow light, giving this stairwell a sudden pastel hue. For the first time, her cat like grin fades, if only for a moment, as she scans what must be an endless expanse below. I begin to take a step forward, but am stopped again, as she shoots a gnce at me, a silent shouting of 'stop!'

  "The reason I was on the ground was because I fell, trying to squeeze through this center." Her gaze meets the tight oval shape, a cold analytical stare.

  "Why exactly would you do that? Did you want to try falling for eternity? Or until you clipped a railing?"

  "Why would I fall forever when there's a bottom I'm looking at?"

  What? I nearly stumble backwards as I let out a gasp, losing my footing for a moment. How, how can there a bottom, a visible bottom at that in this endless stairway?! Is she lying to me?

  Amagami extends her left arm, baring her gsses out, and turns her torso to face me. Her cat like grin having returned, she meets my shocked face with a gentle grin. She silently drops her gsses into the gap.

  "H-hey! Why did you do that, that's littering! Also you need those!" I protest, as she so casually allows her gsses to plummet into the hole.

  A loud, so clear sound. Tink. The sound of something small, thin, made of pstic and metal hitting hard concrete. Without a word, I sprint forward, stopping myself on the now bright yellow railing, and peer down. Sure enough, peering past the twisting shape of the stairway, I see an ending, a final to the twisting hell, the bottom. Sitting at the bottom, shattered and bent, are pair of gsses, they didn't survive the fall sadly. I turn, only to see Amagami's eyes are closed, as she rubs her nose. "That was a power limiter, I use it so I only need to think 33 concurant thoughts at once!" What a stupid lie, but I don't care, I don't care at all. There's a bottom, a way out for her. Make all the stupid jokes you want, please!

  "There is a bottom!" I decre, looking back down at the now everending stairway.

  Wordlessly, she opens her eyes, and peers down, not struggling to see it seems. Ah, I see, she's the type who wears fake gsses to seem more intellectual. I shouldn't think something so rude, she just made a sacrifice to save me, after all. She rapidly blinks, and then opens her mouth into the widest smile I have ever seen.

  "Aha!" Aha? "I knew it would work!" What would work? Amagami rubs her chin proudly, and then dramatically points behind her. "Man-kun, the truth is that I did in fact attempt to descend down an infinite hole in these stairs. And because of that short sighted attempt to beat the system, I fell on my ass on those very stairs." That must have hurt..

  "What!? But..." I look again, the hole is still very much ending. Wait, I see. I didn't see her as she was lying there, so upon seeing her ying there, able to make a rude comment, she was understood to be alright instead of hurt. Like my arm. Like the stairs. She tricked me, no, she forced me to observe the neverending stairwell as ending by creating the idea in my head, and then proving it right. She told me the cat was alive, opened the box, and poked it. She proved that the particle was in one pce and time. Forced us wayward beings into a state of possible escape.

  "Amagami-san, you saved us..." I can hardly believe it, but her method has created the truth in an uncertain pce. "No, I didn't." Amagami shakes her head, "You observed the truth that would allow us to escape. I'm just the girl who told a little lie to get us a convenient truth!"

  How genuinely humble! All I did was look, she's the one who... oh yeah. "I'll help you walk down, since you broke your gsses."

  "Oh those were fake!" I take everything back she is an idiot! Harvard, Oxford, any university that's had her all need gsses themselves! "I could use two thousand yen to make up for the loss, though." She pokes her tongue out, striking a cutesy pose of knocking on her own head.

  "I'll get you twenty pairs if you can get out of here." My own words seem to have caught her attention.

  "If I get out? Are you intending to stay here?" Damn, a Freudian slip. It's not that I want to stay here, it's a matter of deserving.

  "Err..." I rub my neck, I can't exactly admit something so dark to someone's face. "A slip of the tongue."

  "The cute girl is supposed to be the one saying that." No use using a bit to get out of this either. I guess that's what I get for trying to act like a Boke. If god is real, he ordained me as the straight man to be subjected to nonsense.

  Amagami steps forward, a skeptical look in her eyes. "You still view this pce as Hell, don't you?" Naraka, Hell is too good for me.

  No use hiding it, I guess. "Yeah. I guess I don't feel like I deserve a way out." What a shameful admission. I refused to ever admit that to anyone, not even a therapist.

  "So you did something to make you think that you deserve to suffer in Kasutra?" I look away, as she speaks, her eyes are cutting into me. "You don't strike me as a bad son, nor are you particurly dishonest..." She tilts her head. "Do you think that you're a killer?"

  I feel bile rush up from my stomach into my esophagus, my eyes widen, I feel unsteady, like I'm about to fall. She got it, she understood, she knows, how did she know?

  "I-I... I did... Kill someone..." I mutter, the first time uttering these words, it's like blood seeping out from inside my throat, cerated by razors. I look down, staring at her shoes, I can't see her face. I won't. "Co-couldn't save...." I don't deserve to cry, shut up. "Ta-Tats..."

  "That's enough." Amagami's tone is so kind, despite what i just said, despite finding out that I'm worse than that thing out there. "You're torturing yourself just to say that..." I look up, only to see that kind, cat like smile still on her face, ever cheerful. She must be an idiot, naive, irritating, to listen to me so earnestly.

  "Despite your wishes, this pce isn't Hell. Or Naraka, or Naraku." Her eyes looks gssy. "It's only a library, just a library at that." Her eyes fall to my feet, now, lingering only for a moment. "I don't know your story, and it seems you can't tell anyone it, not yet at least." She smiles once more. "But you can live to tell someone it, now. And it's your obligation to do so!"

  "Yeah... I owe it to you, after you showed me a way out."

  She shakes her head, "Nope! Not to me." dead set on correcting my supposed blunder. "To you, to your hurt heart. To the man who wants to find his own truth." What? When did I say that?

  "Why are you here?" I ask, catching her off guard.

  Amagami chuckles, and then turns around, facing the stairs leading upwards. "I'm a hypocrite. One who wants her own logic to be wrong." She stands just ahead of me, bathed in a now pink light, as if the fluorescent lights above obey her command. "Maybe I just want to find a question I can't answer."

  "I'm a hypocrite too." I step up, just behind her. "I want to find an answer to a question I've already answered. One that would make me feel better about myself." For the first time in forever, I smile. Being with her just feels so... right.

  "Then, let's go up. Mister Sinner!" She says, proudly stomping upwards.

  "Yeah..." To be understood, I wonder if Quantum Systems want to be seen, to be observed. Maybe the cat just wants the lid to come off, even if it's already dead. "I'll follow."