????!

  The hot air in my lungs pushes itself out in a heavy wheeze, as I force my spindly legs to carry me as far as they can go, barreling down the compacted middle aisle of the pce I've learned is the height of my Naraka.

  L?P!

  Behind me, an invisible Colossus, a primordial force of pure unseen malice and fury. I hear the sound of the hard linoleum below us cracking, the concrete beneath being impacted, leaving massive craters with every bound.

  ??!

  My legs nearly give out, the hot liquid coating my back, which I refuse to acknowledge is her blood, has trickled down to my ankles. My right knee buckles, the impact of a bounding leap by the demon throwing me off, but I recover by using my right hand to stop my fall. Not wasting any time, I assume a sprinter's stance, and take off once more.

  HARDLOOP!

  She's in danger, and her first thought was to advise me to run, to get out without looking back. Maybe it's the hopeful in her that said that st part, maybe she's hoping the w of cognition that dictate this pce will let her escape. Or, maybe she's trying to save me, save me the trauma of seeing someone else disappear right in front of me.

  CORRER!

  I make a sharp turn, I've entered the byrinthian dispy of records, from a gnce it looks like I've entered the dispy for November of 1999. I rush forward, finding that I'm no longer slipping as much, with a yer of bck carpet under my feet. But the narrowness of my escape route is nothing to my pursuer, the demon here to punish the sinners who deny the ws of it's universe. It barrels into the row, throwing the shelves up into the air, which narrowly fly over my head, crashing to the rows around my own. What am I doing? What chance in hell do I have to get out of this? If I wanted to save myself, I would have made a run for the stairwell. If I wanted to accept my punishment, maybe let Amagami crawl out, I'd have tackled the ruler of my Naraka. Do I think I can save her? Myself? I can't even think right, my lungs are burning! My legs feel weak! But I need to

  RUN!

  I deserve this, she doesn't, she just wants to learn what happened to her dad! I'm the selfish one, I'm the one who belongs in this Hell! Why attack her!?

  I grab a shelf with my left arm, and yank forward with all my strength, making it fall forward suddenly. Instead of stopping the Demon, it mere steps on it, crushing it beneath it's terrible weight, like a can.

  I make another turn, running alongside a row of pilrs, mock marble with what looks like a snake wrapped around their lengths. I grab a dispy off a shelf, a heavy box that almost makes me fall over, but I'm able to adjust to the weight. I look back, seeing a set of craters forming in the way of it's war path. I have to guess, where is it's head? It's cw had to have swung two meters above my head when it first attacked me, if that's the length of it's arm alone, just a bit over a meter from my head!

  I hoist it over my head, and throw it with both arms at where it's head must be, sure enough.

  IMPAC-

  The box misses completely, and shatters on the ground behind the force approaching me, seemingly made of some fragile yet heavy pstic material, files so densely packed they must have be filed with a machine press spray out, stopping the pursuit if only for a moment.

  Dammit! I know that's where its head should be! I know for a fact my aim was nearly perfect despite the handicap forced on me.

  I duck into the next aisle, an empty aisle, 1988, before this city was even formed. Why even have this, I don't care! I need to run, grab Amagami, drag her to the stairwell.

  And what?

  I don't know!

  Throw her in?

  I don't know!!

  Use her as bait?

  "SHUT UP!" I shout, tormented by my own mind. Why now? I need to think, what do I even do?

  With an explosive impact, the row of shelves behind me shoot off to the side, unched by the Demon chasing me. How, I ran off into a random row! I'm being dead quiet too! Even worse, despite the shelves not nding anywhere near me, crashing into other units far away from me, those same heavy crates I just threw begin to plummet down towards me. I raise my arms up, protecting my head and neck. The crate hits my right wrist dead on, my bones ccking and shaking from the ungodly painful hit. I stumble forward, if I didn't block that I'd have been knocked onto the ground, certain death.

  I knew it! I was right! It really is enforcing its own determined outcomes! There's no way that it could be that lucky, a perfectly aimed throw somehow missing entirely. A perfect guess out of hundreds of rows around me. And a miraculous bit of fate leading to my wrist now being badly hurt! Need to run! Get to a new aisle!

  Isn't accepting your fate all you can do?

  Do you think you deserve to escape?

  After you couldn't save him?

  I stop, my foot pnted firmly on the asphalt. I look down, what should be carpet is now the bzing hot bck asphalt of the road I walked to school, 88 written under my feet in white paint, that wasn't what was there. The pain in my wrist, my legs, all gone.

  "Not now! Notnownotnownotnow!" I shout, I'm having an episode, I'm back on that day again! No, not now! Why now!? Kill me! Don't make me see it again! Just stop! STOP!

  "Tatsu!" An idiot shouts, spping the back of someone he's walking besides. The idiot in question dyed his hair bright red, to signify his return to a normal school life. The first day he'd attend high school in person. "Hey c'mon man hurry up!" He shouts, running besides his cssmate's nearly still body, walking as if he was limping. His body lurched forward, a dead look on his handsome face, his cheeks sunken in, his eyes sporting dark bags.

  "Tatsu..." The moron said, standing now just in front of 'Tatsu.' "What's up buddy?" Obvious, no, ignorant, no, horrible. Horrible, neglectful piece of trash he is, the red haired boy stops for his cssmate. Trying to see why the poor man had stopped.

  "It's not Tatsu." A whisper, weak, like he was ill. I fight back the bile rising in my stomach, every time I imagine his voice it hurts. My head spins, my stomach twists and crushes itself.

  "Eh?" The dumbass asks the poor soul. "S-sorry dude, force of habit. I used to think it was pronounced Tatsu back in the day!" Shut up. Just look. Just listen. How do you not see he needs help!? "Hey. You doing ok? If you're sick, you need to stay home, man." Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up! He's not sick!

  "...m fine..." The cssmate says, Hayakami, The Hayakami. The boy who started my obsession. Hayakami Ryuuji, the most popur, most athletic, most kind, and most affable person at every school I've been to. A transfer student, he moved into my district near the end of Elementary. He was in foster care, lost both of his parents, yet was always so kind and friendly.

  The day I met him, was the day I crashed my bike into a river, the one I inherited from my big sister. He dove in and dragged me out, made sure I wasn't hurt. He even went with me to expin to my sister what happened.

  I only read his name at that point, as I was as I am now as a kid, a shut in. It changed me, he changed me. He saved me. If it wasn't for him, the st days of my Elementary days would be clouded in a miasma of isotion, misery. But he chose to be my friend, pyed video games with me, read manga with me, biked, ran, even pyed sports with me.

  I was holding him back, a burden even as a kid, yet he chose to be my friend regardless. He didn't care that his other friends thought I was weird, he thought they were weirder for not liking me. I owed everything to him.

  I limply walk forward, the image of the moron and Hayakami stood, idly discussing whatever inane topic I struggle to recall. It was probably that red haired dipshit bringing up some anime, so blind he can only focus on what he was interested in at the time.

  I slow from the slight jog I started with, to a fast walk, a normal speed, to the painfully slow crawl Hayakami was on that day. Like an ant, I follow him on his left side, the side that idiot never walked on. The pain in his eyes, the emptiness in his presence. It was so obvious, there was nothing left of him.

  "H-hey... Hayakami?" The idiot asks, Hayakami doesn't turn to him, or even look his way, only tensing his face ever so slightly as to raise his ear. "I'm sorry again man. It's not your fault, y'know?" Shut up.

  Hayakami's eye darted over, the audacity of this bastard, mocking him. Acting like everything was ok! I want to swing at him, knock him out. How dare he act like he knew! All you knew is that he lost someone, you don't WHAT he lost! You don't know what he endured you son of a bitch, you don't deserve to be there, I do! If I was there, if I knew what I know now, I could have done something!

  Hayakami lost someone dear, someone he knew before me. A childhood friend, just a month prior. I only knew that she passed suddenly, I had never even met her. And yet this idiot thinks he can talk to Hayakami like he knows? He has the audacity to imply that he knows even the surface of the depths that was the agony of Hayakami!

  "Yeah..." Weakly, Hayakami agreed. As a way to end the conversation, to cut it off before the painful air was exposed to his wound.

  "H-hey... dude, you still having those...?" Tactlessly, the idiot asked.

  "Yeah."

  "That's not good, man. You should try to get more sleep, sounds like you're really tired."

  "I'm fine."

  "Hey, let's skip. We can go back to my pce, you can get some rest."

  "I'm fine..."

  He dropped it, the idiot dropped the case despite the obvious signs in his face. Hayakami had started having hallucinations, of the auditory sort. He was hearing voices, beckoning him to go somewhere.That's not all, it was so obvious but he didn't see. The pitiful idiot he is. He was disillusioned with the world, he was distancing himself from friends, he had endured a severe stress. Hayakami, the textbook victim, every single symptom. In all my years of searching, I've never encountered someone as perfect of a case as him.

  And this idiot, he ignored it. This scum enjoyed the pathetic illusion he clung to of a good, normal, school life. He pushed back his worries, said to himself.

  "This is my year! I'm going to make plenty of friends, I'll get a girlfriend, I'll get to hang out with Tatsu again, like when we were kids!" Blissful ignorance.

  HAINE

  The station, the end of the torment, the finale. The day my life was ruined, a torture of my mind. The two ascend the steps of the station, the scum acting like nothing wrong, that stupid dye he had on, acting like he was any different from the pathetic child he once was. He steps ahead, hands behind his head, his dark brown eyes looking down at the tortured boy, he knows nothing.

  "Hey, after school wanna get some food? That cafe that sells the cheesy Hamburger Steak reopened!" He forces a grin, acting like he has anything to smile about.

  "Yeah." Hayakami weakly answered.

  The fool smiled honestly at that, assuming his friend was in the mood to enjoy himself, that he wanted to be in his company.

  I walk alongside the ragged Hayakami, as I've done a hundred times before, unable to look him in the eye. I reach the top, just after Hayakami did, after he took his st step up. I tried screaming, I tried hitting that idiot, I tried everything, yet this is just a memory. One I torment myself with.

  The two stood at the ptform, the warm summer sun beating down on them in a soft orange glow, it looked like sundown. The idiot snapped his fingers. "You know what would help? Coffee!" No, no don't walk away. Don't you fucking coward! "I'll get you one, my treat. Trains almost here though, so it has to be vending machine." Don't turn, please.

  Hayakami stood there, staring at the dark gray tracks before him, lit with the deep orange glow of the sun above. His dark green eyes met the tracks, he's tired. Please notice, just this once, give me this please.

  "Yeah."

  Don't turn your head, don't. Don't you dare! Please! Just this once! If there's any kind of god, anything, please just let me see what should have happened!

  That scum of the Earth, the ignorant fool, is me. I just don't say it, I'm so ashamed. I was so excited, I dyed my hair, I started acting energetic and lively. I just wanted to be normal, but I ignored him. My best friend, I don't deserve to even think of him that way, but he was.

  It happened in a matter of seconds, the moment I turned my back to him, I heard a shrill shriek. A girl that went to our school was staring at where Hayakami was, mouth having just hung itself wide open in pure terror. The adults around stared on, useless expressions of shock.

  I turned my head, only to see he had fallen onto the tracks, right as the train had arrived. I watched his limp body fall forward, he looked so small, so tired, so weak. He looked like how he did when we were kids. The guy I looked up to, weakly fell into the way of certain death.

  It happened in less than an instant, but I swear to you I saw it. I saw his body become engulfed in a faint yellow glow, and disappear, right before it hit. To everyone else, it looked like his body was just destroyed by a speeding light train, one not meant for the station.

  But I know what I saw.

  You know the rest.

  That's who I'm fighting for? This is the life I'm clinging onto? I feel like ughing, I'm so weak. What good could I do for Amagami? The best I could do for my "best friend" was to give half assed concern, more like pity. Yeah, I couldn't then, and now, even less.

  I stopped, in the middle of the section devoted to that year. My second year of High School. It was fun, acting like I'm more than what I am. A worthless sack of shit.

  A murder by incompetence, I did nothing, nothing worthwhile to help him. I deserve this Kasutra, for all the years I'll spend it's not going to be enough for what I did.

  Is that so?

  My legs start to carry me forward, slowly at first, a weak limp forwards. Then a walk, then a jog, then a run, and then a dead sprint faster than I was before. Why? Why are you still going body? We deserve it. It's ok, just stop.

  Amagami is a hypocrite, but you?

  Who's saying this? This isn't my thoughts. Is that part of my brain I was talking to able to communicate to me?

  Just as I am about to reach the end, the shelves to my left come flying towards me, the heavy metal crashing against me. I manage to block it for the most part, but the pain of hard steel cracking against my already winded body. I'm sent backwards, my body knocking over the set of shelves that stood behind me, the back of my ribs cracking against their hard metal ends. The air expels from my lungs, it wasn't a direct hit, but it seems that's enough.

  My body rolls backwards, flopping down onto the hard linoleum floor. If I die like this, it's going to attack Amagami. I begin to crawl backwards, staring into the warping mass of nothingness that stands before me, the beast that had torn off my arm moved like the air, twisting and flowing in ways unseen.

  Thud. My back hit a pilr, I'm cornered. The st attempt from my body to save itself failed, not accounting for the absurd yout of this pce. The shelves are stepped on, crushing them ft under the demon's feet. Another step, one that crushes its way into the concrete below. Another, and another.

  Now I'm going to die, and so is Amagami. In my st moments on this pnet I dragged someone into my Naraka, dooming them to the same fate, the one they don't deserve unlike me. Yeah, I deserve this. Whatever it does to me, I had it coming.

  You're a liar.

  What?

  This whole time, you've been lying to yourself. Excusing the actions of this pce, acting like it has any right to decide the fate of humans. Of people.

  This is my Naraka! I'm here because I let Tatsu die! I deserve this!

  Yet you kept running, you fled the first time, and again, and even just now. You fought to survive.

  I deserve this!

  You wanted to save him, didn't you.

  I never tried.

  Liar.

  You taxed yourself after his friend passed, you stayed up day and night trying to help him. You wanted to help him more than anything.

  You even dyed your hair that ridiculous color, all because of a joke he once made.

  "With a name like yours, you should be the firey red haired guy in a shonen manga."

  You drew that thing away from Amagami, and even now, you're thinking of how to help her.

  Then I should let myself-

  You want to escape too, don't you?

  THUD.

  It's just before me now, certain death.

  For once, stop lying.

  Stop bming myself.

  And be honest with myself.

  Huh. That was me, that was my own voice talking to me.

  I want her to get out, I want her to find out what happened to her dad. After so many years I finally met someone like me, someone who knows the hurt I do! How could I ever let this thing get her?

  After everything I endured. After all the stories I fought to show the world, no, because I only ever wanted to document them! Never did I try to help them! After all the times I knew I wasn't crazy, all the times I knew I was doing what I wanted to do! I don't care if I deserve this punishment!

  "Say it."

  "I'm don't want to die!"

  The air in front of me suddenly changes, from clear air to odd blocky shapes, a deep dark blue. They appear at random, taking the form of a rge humanoid shape, before shrinking in on themselves. Like a sculptor molding cy, no, like a modeler shaping a 3D model at lightning speed, a form is given to the formless uncertain demon.

  Before me is a gargantuan, the Narakasura, no. This isn't some Buddhist myth, not a demon king of hell. What stands before me is a tall figure, sporting long scrawny arms, that bare long cws at the end of each spindly hand. Its waist is concave, it's long legs bending backwards. Its flesh is fire, a weakly burning blue fme, which emanates cold instead of heat. No face, not even eyes, this thing's existence is as uncertain as I thought it was. Not as perfect as I thought you were.

  Agony erupts from inside my skull, my brain feels like it's splitting apart from the inside. I let out an involuntary scream, air exiting my lungs rapidly as the gray matter in my head cries out, every synapse crashing against the bone inside. I feel like my head's splitting apart!

  "Do you want to go on, no matter what?"

  "Even if you couldn't help him?"

  "Yes!"

  "Even if you deserve this fate?"

  "Yeah!"

  "Then let's do this!"

  In front of the Demon, forms a raging fire, one which starts out blue much like its form, and then a bright red. It shapes into a rge broad chested figure, sharp angur pauldrons, a helmet with flowing hair of fire coming from behind. It's wide arms flex, shedding the fire from itself, showing blood red armor underneath, carved with characters used in Shinto scriptures in bold white ink. The figure extends its hands forward, showing it's cw like hands off, and circles itself, creating a ring of red electricity around itself. It grips the top most part, summoning Tomoe on each segment of it.

  I lean forward, to see its face, or helmet. A fiercesome face, like a roaring dragon, carved onto it. The hair from underneath flowing despite no wind being inside this pce.

  "Our pact is sealed, no more being dishonest with yourself."

  This is... I just summoned a god, no. This is a part of me. This is my will manifested! This is...

  "Raijin!" A thunder god, born from the corpse of Izanami in Shintoism. A fiercesome demonic being, one who pounds the drums of storms. It's embarrassing to admit, but this is perfect for me. Yeah, I never got over the stuff I thought was cool when I was 13, so what?

  Raijin cps his hands together, and spreads them apart, revealing a pilr of lightning within his palms. Out of desperation to fulfill it's goal of killing me, that Demon thing comes charging forward, but it's too te.

  Raijin grabs the lightning, and pulls it apart, forging it in a manner of seconds. Before it can even finish, he swings the mace-like hammer to his side, crashing it into the head of the whatever it is, smming it into the ground below, leaving a massive crater.

  Not missing a beat, Raijin leaps into the air, now gripping his bck-steel hammer. He throws into down, into the exposed back of the thing that took my arm off, impaling it with the blunt end, making it twitch violently, letting out a silent scream. Raijin comes plummeting down, arms crossed in an X pattern, towards the foe that almost killed me.

  "I don't deserve this! I never did! I want to help, I don't care if I'm useless! I'd be even worse if I never tried!"

  An explosive impact, Raijin crashes into the thing, splitting it in half with a falling thunder cross chop attack! It erupts, sprays red all over, coating the stark white room in its blood. Me as well, as it turns out. Hot wet blood sprays onto my chest, absolutely coating me in its gore.

  I stand, gasping for air. I couldn't save him, but I know now there's one person I can. Me!

  The blood that coats me as well as my surroundings begins to burn away, like paper put above a fme, leaving not a single mark on the destroyed floor beneath me, or myself. What remains of that thing burns away, the smoke forming into small squares as it floats away, looking like a poorly done effect in an old game, before vanishing.

  Stood in the crater, my cognition of what I consider to be my savior... me. Raijin, the opposite of the wind god Fujin. A blood red demon, what should be a resident of Hell. Except this isn't Hell, or Naraka, or Naraku. It's just a library. I can never have the punishment I want, no matter how much deserve it.

  "I still don't forgive myself." I say to Raijin, who's hair flows in the wind, his imposing helmet meeting my eyes. "I know I did everything I could, I know I couldn't stop whatever took him away. But I should done more..."

  He simply nods, and says in a hushed tone.

  "I know."

  He begins to vanish, blowing away into the wind that defies logic.

  "But you will. Because someone knows you will."

  "Who?"

  "Same as the person you saved."

  With that, the one who saved me vanishes, like the wind he rode so effortlessly, like a storm passing into the bright sun. I can't tell you what just happened in any sort of scientific, or mythological, or any coherent way. Maybe I just hallucinated all of that, considering not a drop of blood is left. But I don't care. What it said was true, I'm a liar. I never was ok with sitting on the side. I want to help, I want find people like me. I want to be more than... just the guy who archives it all. I wanna live.

  Looking at myself, there's no blood on me at all. Not even on my back. Whatever blood that thing's attack on Amagami caused is gone. So that means, there's no proof she was attacked!

  Without a word, I begin to sprint towards the center aisle of the records hall, my legs seem to have gotten the memo, I can hardly feel any strain from all the running I've done today, the pain has vanished.

  I make a hard turn onto the slick linoleum floor, and stare down the center towards the exit.

  Amagami is sat upright, a confused, dazed, even tired expression on her face. Her pink lips are pursed out, her deep blue eyes scan her surroundings, until they nd on me, narrowing slightly. Once again, that smile returns, her gentle, pyful, cat-like grin.

  "You were supposed to run away, Man-kun."

  I walk towards her, hands kept at my side, somehow standing upright despite the beating I've gotten.

  "Your pn sucked, so I did my own."

  "That's rude of you, it's enough to break a girl's heart."

  "I'm gd you're ok." My voice is quivering, shaking with every sylble. I've only just met this girl, and I'm nearly crying upon seeing she's alright. I guess it's been so long, but I know this feeling well.

  Amagami stands up, brushing her the white speckles off of her bck skirt, not a drop of blood on her. She looks up, meeting my misty eyes with a gentle expression.

  "Sorry I worried you, Man-kun." She says, raising her hand above her head, and bonking it with her closed fist. "That was mean to do to a friend."

  Friendship, knowing someone well enough to call them a friend. After only a few hours may be a bit hasty, but who cares?

  "How exactly did you beat your Monster, Man-kun?"

  "You know Lapce's Demon?"

  Amagami looks offended by that question, "Why wouldn't I?" firing back skeptically.

  "I think it'd lose a fight with Schrodinger's Cat." I say, a dumb smirk on my face. As hard as it is to believe it, that is what happened. The one being that could fully perceive an uncertain being like a human, was beaten by one.

  Amagami's offense drains from her face, being repced with an earnest grin, a satisfied look aimed at me. "You really are an idiot. That makes no sense what so ever."

  "Though." She pauses. "The Cat's able to exist, unlike that outdated fairy tale mocking my dearly beloved Mechanics..." Dearly beloved? Get a room.

  "Let's find your Dad's records."

  Amagami seems surprised, looking at me with wide eyes. "I thought you wanted to find something yourself."

  "I already did."

  "... I'm pleasantly surprised." Amagami steps forwards, walking past me briskly. "I thought you'd be an obnoxiously stubborn man. But you're actually quite nice."

  Eh? Thought? "Do you know me?"

  Amagami stops, looking back at me fondly. "I've been following your case since the beginning." What?! The Amagami Ikue was following my case, why, what, how!?

  "Why would a Quantum Physicist want to follow my case?!"

  "Because, as little sense as it makes..." She pauses, building up courage within herself. "It gave me hope that I could see my Dad one day..."

  She started following my case because of the fact that her Dad Vanished. This whole time, she knew who I was, why I was here. Amagami Ikue, you had me pegged from the start. I simply can't catch up with you. If she knows who Redman is... maybe she's one of...

  I shake my head, "Looking to be a first?" I'm walking into a sex joke.

  "I'll ignore the obvious sex joke for once, and ask you first of what?" She has restraint!?

  "The first person I helped get the answer they need."

  Amagami's mouth curls up into a big, arched grin, one that makes dimples on her perfectly smooth cheeks, her pink lips shine ever so slightly in the harsh light above. She simply nods, the most earnest smile I think I have ever seen, belongs to the most reserved person I've ever met.

  "Sounds perfect. Man-kun."

  "A-Akagi..." I mutter out, no use hiding behind my user name. "My name's Akagi Renji. Not Redman."

  Amagami stares at me, tilting her head slightly. "Did you pick Redman because of your st name?"

  "I never picked Redman to begin with! I was ArchiveMan! ArchiveMan!"

  "I see..." Amagami nods, and raises her head up. "Then, let's go, Renji-kun."

  She called me by given name... That's the first time I've heard it in a while. I think I missed it a little, even if it's a bit old sounding. Cheap, honesty. Followed by Samurai. A strong name, meant for the first boy of the house. Someone who's supposed to protect his family. I think I thought it didn't fit me, maybe now I want to make it fit.

  "As you command, Amagami."

  "Eh? Not going to call me Ikue from now on?" What do you think is, a Light Novel? I'm not going to start breaking norms for your sake!

  "People are going to get the wrong idea like that!"

  "How cruel, snubbing me so soon. My hair isn't even blue..." Hey that's an insult to all blue haired women!

  "That trope isn't even accurate!"

  "Name a blue haired women who truly won the hero's heart, then."

  That's easy there's.... Well, I think....

  "L-Let's find the records already!" I stomp my foot, gotta change the topic!

  "I guess that means I'm right." Amagami says with a smug expression, for all blue haired women out there, shame on you!

  "You take the lead then, boss..." Why are you calling me boss, idiot! And I don't know the date!

  "You do it! I don't know when your dad Vanished, you dumbass!"

  "I suppose I can, just this once." This girl is making my head hurt. However, I find talking to her like this to be fun, she's so easy to talk to, even if she often makes me want to hit my head against a wall.

  Amagami takes the lead, ignoring the craters left by the Not-so-Lapce's-Demon, and continuing on with a brisk pace. Now that things are calm, I feel my legs crying out in agony, the adrenaline's faded after all. Not only that, but my back's killing me. Despite that, I'm going to join her. I want to help her, like she helped me.

  It didn't take long to find the date in question, even less so to find clippings from the local newspaper, which confoundingly is still in print. Amagami's descriptions of this pce painted it as behind in terms of technology, which I can confirm. Despite my efforts, and Mu's as well from what he said, no records exist online for local news. They likely stick to cable news outlets and reports from government services given to the newspaper.

  Amagami holds a folder, containing the clippings of the paper from the time. One which the local police refused to let her see in any way.

  Amagami Shunsuke was found dead, his drowned body washed up on a local beach two days after he disappeared. It wasn't a front page article, nor did it have more than a short paragraph. Despite her hopes, despite mine, painful reality is all we've found here. A father who's own shame pushed him into a dark pit, one he couldn't escape. Disgraced as husband, a schor, even as a father, he couldn't handle the pain which he endured. Despite all of that, despite how selfish it is to leave a child, or any family behind like that. I can only think thing, looking at this little article. A notion that were I in his position, I would think as well.

  He died in a way that should have prevented her the grief of knowing that her father ended his own life. Selfish, how damn selfish can you get? Denying her the truth to spare her feelings. Maybe that's what having a dad is. I wouldn't know, despite my efforts.

  Amagami's smile holds, as tears begin to well up in her deep blue eyes, droplets falling onto the sleeve which holds the clippings. She opens her mouth, her lips quivering, and stops. She inhales, and turns to me.

  "It was a nice dream to have. Wasn't it?" The dream that her father was out there, that maybe he'd return one day.

  "It was." I say, kneeling besides her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

  "I just wanted to t-tell him... that he wasn't a bad dad." She says, trying not to cry, her makeup streaking down her cheeks as tears flood down. "That a stupid library failing didn't mean he failed mom, that him struggling wasn't him failing me..." She sniffles, biting her lip to not sob. "I just wanted to tell him that he was a selfish bastard for locking himself away, for not letting me be a kid." She inevitably gives up, letting out a loud wail. "I wanted to tell him I didn't hate him!"

  I'm not good at this, comforting people who are suffering has always been a weak point of mine. But I guess I should say what I'd like to hear.

  "I'm sure he knew. He's your Dad, after all."

  Amagami kneeled there for minutes, sobbing wildly at the revetion, the loss. I was hoping he'd have Vanished too, because maybe, one day, he'd come back. That's often the problem with stories like these, despite how odd they are, how fantastical they seem. It's always the most simple answer. The most painful one.

  I took one st look in the doorway of the stairwell, before shutting the metal door. For once in my life, I'm ok with not having a question answered. Amagami and I began our exit.

  "Whatever that was, I think it was a defense mechanism of some sort?" Amagami suddenly says, as we reached the bottom of the stairs, the long awaited third floor. I'm stopped to scoop up her shattered gsses, I can't let litter be left alone after all. "I think the reason why this pce became a world where cognition rules, instead of the Mechanics of the universe, is because of us."

  "What do you mean?"

  "We were looking for the same thing, committing the same sin, at the same time." She says, staring at the oddly colored 3 on the wall, a dark purple. "We acted against the logic of a universe built on a code of logic, wanting a scientific impossibility."

  "I.. came here hoping I'd find someone like me." I confess.

  "I did too." She admits, a contented grin on her face. Amagami Ikue, what an oddity you are. Such a logical person, who hates the same ws she clings to. "I wanted someone who'd entertain my dream, that my Dad was alive..." Her mencholic expression meets the sheen of the silver door handle. "But because of that, because it happened to be the one pce that held an oddity like this..." She turns to me. "We were punished, for being the sinners we are."

  "It's not about if it was a punishment." I step forward, keeping the remains of the spectacles in my ruined bzer. "Whatever that was wanted to stop us, because we acted against the logic it viewed as a universal w. Wanted us to accept that we were wrong." I smile. "But it was a hypocrite. Because determinism goes against all logic. Hell, logic goes against itself. We find new things out every day."

  "So why do you say we were kept here?"

  "To prove that we're like that monster, hypocrites, who go against what they want."

  "Well said..."

  Amagami and I step out into the main lobby, an isoted expanse as I left it, the windows showing the snowy world outside. We've escaped into reality, away from the marble of fwed logic we called our Hell. "We should split up..." Amagami suddenly says, stepping forward.

  "Why's that?" Does she not want to talk after all that? Well, we did just meet. But she said we were friends...

  "I have to get home in an hour."

  "Why are you walking so slow! Go get a cab!"

  "And..." She raises a finger to her lip. "As proof."

  "How so?"

  "We fed into this phenomenon, by accident, but we did. This pce's unhealthy obsession with logic, may be due to my father." She pauses, it hurt to admit that. "He couldn't accept the illogical conclusion that his mature daughter was as childish as he was. And assumed I hated him." She turns to me, showing that earnest grin again. "This pce assumed we were sinners, for wanting to find someone like ourselves. For wanting the illogical outcome. Whatever caused this cognitive disaster, I don't know. But..." She nods, firmly. "Us being able to walk away is proof, that we found what we wanted. Right?"

  "Yeah." I nod.

  Without another word, Amagami made off for the exit, not looking back a second longer. I wanted to call out, but she did need to get home quick. And, she's right. Us going together out of here isn't necessary, we proved that this pce is just a library. No one will ever think otherwise, even if they're like us. Plus, a parting without a goodbye is just a future reunion. No doubt.

  However. She didn't ask for any of my contact info, and neither did I.

  Ah you idiot! Wait is that to me or her?