We sprint onto the roof and everything becomes a mad mess of chaos. I've never been very well able to handle things with many legs and just about all the creatures we're seeing up here have more than six. Doesn't help that they're huge and either furry or slimy and there's also the thing that half of them can fly.

It's like what nightmares are made of. I duck by instinct as a giant cockroach-thing glides over my head, but I still see the tiny hooks on its legs and for the first time in my life I wish I had bad eyesight because that's something I just really don't need to see.

"Natsumi..." I wail to my friend, who has already skillfully caught two centipede-like things in icebergs she has conjured up. "Natsumi, how can I expect to fight any of Shun's inner demons alone when I can't even handle these while being not-alone?"

"But they will not look like this, little sausage dog. Everyone's inner demons look different," a voice explains from above. I recognize it immediately as Ikoma-san number four, the one who has been identified by Natsumi as the "real" Ikoma-san, who unlike all the other fragments out there is actually important and also can fight.

I look up and finally see him, and I can't help being surprised. He is, like we expected from the gigantic cat and gigantic voice, huge. But unlike all the other fragmented Ikoma-sans we've seen, he actually looks... normal. I would maybe find him attractive even, if I were into fifty-year-olds, which unfortunately I'm not.

He has a pleasant round face, messy soft hair dyed a light brown, a tanned complexion and a scarf wrapped around his neck for no other apparent reason than style. Perhaps this was how he looked back when he had not yet become... comatose?

He still looks gigantic and his voice is ridiculously breezy so I have to duck behind a cylinder-shaped piece of equipment whose function I have no idea of in order to not be blown away again.

"Ah, you indeed my kind. You react strong to sounds. The others, they don't. See, little sausage dog?" Ikoma-san says, merriment dancing in his eyes. I'm not sure if it's the right time for him to be merry considering we're on the roof of a power plant surrounded by an army of flying cockroaches but it's his mind, not mine, so I don't really have the right to complain.

"He calls you 'little sausage dog'?" Natsumi exclaims incredulously as she freezes a long-legged spider-thing in its path.

"Uh, it's kind of a thing, yeah," I admit. Natsumi wrinkles her nose.

"Yes, you little sausage dog. We are similar, you know. We became mindhackers by accident. What others can do, we cannot. But we also lucky, because others cannot brainwash us easily. What affects others easily does not affect us so much. That is why you must hurry, cotton puff! You go to help your friend, must be fast, or darkness can grow too big."

I nod as my eyes scan the grounds for Ririka. I see her somewhere up high fighting some crispy-looking roaches and decide that I'll try to get as much information from Ikoma-san as possible while I wait for her to come to me (I obviously can't go to her; I can't fly). "Yeah... I'll go... but what was that you said about Shun's inner demons not looking like this?"

"Everyone has different negative things inside them, you round cheese ball," Ikoma-san explains fondly while I clutch onto the cylinder-shaped equipment piece for dear life. "The darkness they put in us, they bring out different negative things in us. My negative things... apparently... they look like this." He gestures to the creatures soaring around like stingrays in an aquarium. "Your friend, his negative feelings... may look completely different. He different from me. His negative feelings... can be even worse."

"Well damn," I mutter under my breath. And here I was thinking it couldn't get any worse. "What can be worse than large flying creatures with six to eight legs?"

The answer immediately comes to me. "Ooh, large flying creatures with twelve to sixteen legs, of course!"

"I don't mean it that way," Ikoma-san says in dismay.

"Okay, they're not large flying creatures with twelve to sixteen legs, fine. But how do I defeat them?" I ask in despair. I see Ririka making a beeline towards me now. Got to hurry and ask Ikoma-san whatever I need to know before she gets here—oh wait, she's got intercepted by two centipede things again.

Ikoma-san shakes his shaggy head. "But I do not know, little honeycomb. Have I not told you already? You should be the one who knows, not me."

"But I don't," I whimper. "I don't know! I haven't done a single thing right so far and everyone's been saving me instead of me saving them and I can't even use a real weapon that's not an instrument—"

"Ah, that is where you are wrong!" Ikoma-san says triumphantly. "Do you still not get it? Why you can conjure instrument, but cannot conjure anything else?"

I frown. "Why?"

"You are like me, you. We got in mindhacking school by accident. We cannot believe, we cannot make new weapon out of thin air. But when we in mindhacking world, we can do normal things, can we not? We can breathe, we can walk, we can burp."

"Uh, yeah, so...?" I prod, though personally I cannot say I've ever burped in someone's mindscape before.

"We can do what we think are normal things. And playing music, it is normal to us, is it not? It is reflex," Ikoma-san continues. I notice the electric guitar he is holding. Quite a nice model by the way; we'd probably price it at about—

I tell the instrument store owner's granddaughter in me to shut up. Not the right time to ponder guitar prices.

"So that's why we can play music in other people's minds," I muse. "Right, now I know why I can play my elega in someone's mindscape despite not being able to 'believe'. But that doesn't get me anywhere, does it?"

"Oh no no no!" Ikoma-san wags one finger. "You see, young teenaged hyena, our minds react strongly to things we hear, or taste, or smell. When you smell something familiar it gives you memories, does it not? Same thing with music. Music brings you thoughts. See, here I am in my own mind. If I play something that makes myself think, watch, watch what happens—"

I watch. Ikoma-san launches into a manic solo on his electric guitar, and several dark creatures surrounding him are suddenly ripped into shreds along with the whirlwind of notes. My mouth drops open.

"So, you see." Ikoma-san turns to me, a placid look on his good-natured round face. "We cannot make new weapon, but music already good weapon."

"...You've got to teach me that. Like, I had, uh, stopped waves and moved things by playing music, but I've never used it to fight before—"

"Then you already have the basics! Little shake-shake fries, if you stopped waves and moved things, then you already know how to use music to give you thoughts. All you need is a little more practice and you have great weapon! See, all these dark creatures—I can handle them now. My guitar and I."

"Uh, okay..." I glance at the flying roaches, at Ririka who is still making her way towards me, and back at Ikoma-san. "Wait, if you're so good at getting rid of all this darkness, why haven't you done so like years ago? If you'll forgive me for asking..."

Ikoma-san rolls his eyes. "I was in a coma, was I not? You people drop in and wake me up. And I cannot kill the source of darkness alone! Your classmates will help me. And you go help your friend. Destroy the source of darkness and everything will be okay, but do it fast. Cute jellyfish faerie here to pick you up. You go now! I wait for good news."

I have no idea why Ikoma-san thinks Ririka is a cute jellyfish faerie but she has indeed finally arrived to pick me up. She sits amidst a wild mess of shawls and her normally neat caramel-colored hair flies in every direction as she extends her hand to me. I clamber onto the large coat she is currently riding on, and take one last look at Ikoma-san. He smiles and waves and he's still really big so I can see him even as we go up, up and higher up.

"I'm really, really, really sorry about this, but I'm going to have to kick you off," Ririka informs me.

"Er, I know. Natsumi told me," I tell her as I ruffle her hair with one hand and gently rub her back with another. Fighting flying cockroaches can't be fun for her; I can tell that she is trembling hard. But I can also tell that she wants to stay and fight. Despite looking very cute, Ririka is a fighter till the end.

"Or you can just jump off yourself if you want?" Ririka suggests. "So that I don't have to kick you."

"Er..." I say. And then I "er..."-ed for another three times.

"Okay," Ririka concludes, "I'll kick you."

I gulp.

"On the count of three. One—"

She doesn't even get to two before I am soaring, tumbling, free-wheeling in this endless diamond sky.

Oh, wait, that's the lyrics of A Whole New World.

As I watch the mass of dark buildings down there quickly approach (or, I'm approaching them, more like), my thoughts linger on the possibility that Katsuki may, after all, not pull me out in time and then I'll just randomly die in Ikoma-san's mind, having achieved absolutely nothing.

But the fleeting thought passes as suddenly the city bursts into light. It is blindingly bright but also dazzlingly beautiful, because the lights inside the buildings come in so many different colors. Far, far beyond the skyline is a giant pastel-colored ferris wheel and I wish I could stay in this mind a little bit longer because wow—

And then I'm lying on a mattress looking at the concerned face of Katsuki.