I would love to trust him, to trust this sweet little one whom I remember used to be the teachers' pet and the king of pointless little games and unexpectedly good at the hula hoop. But I can't trust him. What happened in Ikoma-san's mind has taught me what I need to know about multiple selves in someone's mind. They're broken, not always bad, but broken. Only one of the multiple selves is real. We were lucky to have found the real Ikoma-san fairly soon, right next to the box he is keeping watch over.

This little one, meanwhile, is most definitely not Shun's "real" self. For one thing, he's a kid. For another... well... yeah, he's a kid.

He might not necessarily be evil or anything, but like the Ikoma-sans number one, two and three, they're just distractions. They mean well, but they don't know that their own worldviews have become so warped they are unable to guide any visitors to the correct path.

No harm in saying hi though, I suppose.

"Hi," I say to little Shun, feeling quite lame.

The little boy looks thoughtful for a moment, arms folded in front of his chest, and finally speaks.

"That wasn't very nice of you, you know?"

I stoop down so that we're face to face, which seems to me the appropriate way to converse with a nine-year-old. "What wasn't very nice of me?"

The little boy pouts. "You got off the train."

I notice that little Shun's hands are balled up in fists and wonder why. "Wait, why shouldn't I have?"

"Because it's not fair." He looks down at the cold marble ground. "It's not fair. You can leave anytime you want, but every time I go on that train—every time we go on that train—we have to go through all those stops, every one of them, we take the train to the terminal station, we... we..."

"Oh dear," I attempt to murmur in what I hope is a soothing voice. "Poor baby. Those are not something fit for a child's eyes, are there? Jin... and Hiroki..."

"And more. Replayed again and again." The little boy looks up at me with wide, melancholy eyes. "It hurts. It hurts me here." He places a hand on his heart.

"I'm so sorry," I tell him, and I truly am.

Surprisingly enough, my efforts to sound like a kind big sister are greeted by an impatient snort.

"You... sorry!"

I stare at the boy, who has for some reason burst into laughter. The insane kind. The creepy kind. The kind of laughter only Ophelia is capable of a couple of hours before falling into the river or something.

"Oh you sure deserve to be sorry. You know why I'm here? You know why I'm forever stuck here, in my third-grade form? You wanna know why?"

I gulp. I don't really "wanna know why", but I figure saying so isn't going to help the situation.

"It's because of you! All because of you! You're a witch—" the laughter dies down, and suddenly the boy is on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. "You're a witch. You're a filthy, disgusting witch... and I could not save you."

There must be a mistake somewhere.

"There must be a mistake somewhere," I voice my opinion, but the boy stubbornly remains in that awkward crying position on the floor.

"Uh... I can play you a song?" I suggest, feeling stupid. I've been feeling stupid a lot these days but you can hardly blame me.

"I don't want to hear no song!" young Shun bawls. "Go away... go away... I never wanna see you again!"

"Ow, that hurts," I comment, and right on cue the next train pulls up. Perhaps in Shun's mind trains take orders from whatever version of him, and now my new ride has come to take me away just because third-grader Shun wants me gone.

But do I want to step on that train?

I don't think so.

Instead, I take my sweet time surveying the subway map that is conveniently situated on the wall, under the broken clock. There seem to be four main lines, according to the different colors. There are more than a hundred stops altogether and unfortunately the names are all written in some language I do not speak. As such, I don't even know which station I am in right now.

Like, I know it's pronounced "Endo", but how would I know how it's written?

Either way, since I haven't even left the platform, it's safe to assume that if I hop on the train, I will be continuing on the same line, where I'm going to come across who knows how many things that bring Shun endless remorse before I can arrive at a connecting station or something.

"Take the train," the little boy at the ground says. Except it sounds more like an order than anything.

"Er... I don't want to?"

"Take the train!" he yells, righting himself and standing up. He sprints towards me and even as a third grader Shun is awfully fast. Within a second he is in front of me, and he is no longer cute.

"Take the train! Take the train! Take the train take the train take the train take the train—"

The boy seems to grow taller, and darker, and wispier, with every word he utters. Before he can finish whatever he considers a sentence he has transformed into a super-slender and super-eerie shadow cast on the ceiling. His arms have increased in length as well and now they're extended towards me.

"Take the train! Take it to the terminal station and you'll see!"

The voice, no longer childish, is deep and menacing and bouncing all over the station walls. I feel an upcoming headache and cover my ears.

"See what?" I yell back in hopes that long-shadow-man will hear my question despite the racket he's making.

"See everything, see why everything makes me feel so guilty, see why you make me feel so guilty, so guilty..."

The voice trails off, the shadow is gone, and the train waits.

So guilt it is, I realize. As Ikoma-san had explained, the darkness can't thrive on its own. It feeds on pain, fear, negative feelings. And if guilt is a negative feeling, Shun definitely has lots of it. I know because I have it too. When I watched Jin die. When I watched Hiroki being tormented by his worst fear yet was unable to help. When I watched Yukiya, Izumi, Anna. When I watched that little boy named Yusuke being bullied and his name stayed in my brain forever, not because I cared about him but because I cared about how I didn't try to help him.

I definitely have tons of guilt inside me. Of course Shun does too, and therefore the darkness inside him grows much faster than Ikoma-san's. It eats away at him as he replays Jin's death at Imada Station, and Hiroki's suffering at Endo Station, and whatever other things that make him guilty at whatever other stations (who know how many there are). That's a lot of pain. That's a lot of fear. That's a lot of sadness. And the darkness has become powerful because of it.

But why am I mentioned? What does the terminal station has to do with me? I'm pretty sure Shun hasn't done anything to me that's worth feeling guilty about, except having a crush on someone you can't have can be kind of tortuous but I don't think that's it. Like, Shun doesn't even know I have a crush on him.

At least I hope he doesn't. Oh dear I really hope he doesn't, it'd be really embarrassing.

No matter what that thing at the terminal station is, it must be serious. After all, it's worthy of being placed at a terminal station, so it's probably important, isn't it? Unfortunately the only clue I have is that it's got something to do with me being a witch and Shun being a third-grader. Also, unfortunately, I don't really want to get on that train. How long will it even take for me to get to the terminal station? Will I get there in time?

The train stands, waiting. Lights on inside, so inviting.

I shake my head and walk towards the nearest exit. It's been only two stops, so I should probably be able to find the station I came from. If I can find it, then I can find my junior high school. If I can find my junior high school, then I'm close to home. If I can find my home, then I can get to my elementary school, where whatever happened in third grade happened.

I'll just walk there instead of taking the train. I can't let a third-grader and a random long-shadow-man have their way all the time, can I? I'm here to save Shun, so we play by my rules.

I step out into the orange sunset. For some reason, the second I step out, I hear the clock in the station start ticking. Time is running out.

But somehow, I have this strange blossoming confidence in me. I've finally put together most of the pieces. I know what's causing the darkness to become powerful in Shun's mind. I know that I need to get rid of the main source of darkness to save him. I know where to find the main source of darkness—most likely at the terminal station, at the elementary school where I'm headed.

The only thing I don't know is what exactly makes Shun so guilty over me, but I'm perfectly ready to find out.

At least, I hope I'm perfectly ready to find out.