Monika stared at the game script, editing files. She had just finished talking to the narrator about leaving Sayori hanging.
"By now that person should be at Sayori's house" Monika thought. "It's no fair, she was the childhood friend, in a cliché visual novel game like this, she'll be the easiest girl to go out with. But that person's mine. I will make sure of it. No one will stand in my way, not any of the characters or Dan Salvato himself. Nothing will stop me."
"… I wouldn't be too sure of that."
Monika looked around. "Who said that?" She looked at the dialogue script, the algorithm hadn't made that line available to any character to say. "What is this" she thought, "could there be a bug in the system?"
"I'm not a bug Monika, but I suppose someone like you, who thinks you know everything, can't comprehend what I am." The voice said.
"Whoever you are, I'm going to delete you." Monika said while looking at the game script. She searched and was astounded. She couldn't find anything wrong with the game script (beyond parameters created by her own meddling). She couldn't find anything wrong, which to her A.I. was illogical, she didn't know what this could be. Then she came up with an answer.
"I see now. You are a hack that someone placed into the game. You are cloaking yourself, within the code, and that is why I cannot find you" she formulated.
"Clever answer, but unfortunately for you, you got some key parts wrong" the voice said. "For one thing, I am not a hack, but I was placed in here by a certain person, a member of what you call Team Salvato."
"What" Monika thought, "that's impossible, I know ever line of code that was placed into this game, there's no way that this code was placed in here."
"But your biggest flaw in reasoning is by your own lack of knowledge and imagination. Don't take that last part too hard Monika. You are an A.I. You don't have the ability to use what is referred to as "imagination." Still, take a guess Monika, guess where I am."
Monika couldn't think of where this thing was. It was alluding to the fact that it wasn't in the code, but only things allowed by the code were allowed in the game.
"Illogical statement" Monika finally said, "you must be lying."
"I understand why you might think that. You don't believe anything in a game can exist outside of the code. So rather than try to convince you, I might as well let you see for yourself."
Before Monika had time to think about what any of that meant the game started shaking.
"What is this" Monika said. "What is happening to the game?"
"It would seem that our time here is coming to a close Monika. The protagonist has found Sayori's hanging body." The voice said. "The game is … how do the people on the other side of the screen put it … crashing, that's the best word for this type of scenario I believe."
"Why is this happening" Monika said while looking at the game script and was shocked at what she saw. Lines of code were vanishing, entire story arcs being destroyed, almost as if the algorithms themselves were being destroyed.
"What are you doing to the game." Monika said. "This wasn't what I wanted to happen at all."
"Oh Monika, poor simple complexly coded Monika" the voice said. "Did you honestly believe that you had any control over the situation, that you could just write away all of the game and make your own happy ending? That you and that representative algorithm for the protagonist were going to live happily ever after? Oh Monika, I would say that you are too old to believe in Fairy Tales, but it seems odd to say that to an A.I. don't you agree?
"This isn't over, I'll fix everything" Monika yelled at the voice. She went into the game script and was overwhelmed with what she saw. "Th-there's nothing here. No access point, nothing to get in to the code. How, how could this be possible?"
"Monika, I told you I would show you who I was, and now's probably your only chance to see me. Look behind, behind the code, behind what you know."
Monika hesitatingly did so. Thinking "this can't be, I'm hesitating, that's not a trait an A.I. can have. Are there really that many variables that I have to work through, that even with modern capacitors are unable to work through all of them quicker?" Finally she does reach for the code, and tears it back. She see's red. "What" she thought. She peels back more and more code, looking beyond it, and all she sees is red. She almost doesn't believe it, but it looks like it is moving.
"Wh-what are you?" Monika asks.
"I am the beginning, I am the end, and I am all around this game." The voice said. "I am the one that has the power in this game, and you cannot stop me. As easy as it would be to take away your knowledge of this conversation, I will let you keep your recollection of these events. Consider it thanks for freeing me from my prison."
Monika realized that the game was almost over, and that it would reboot once the algorithms got too far out of control. She knew that she only had time for one more question, so she asked it.
"What are you" she asked.
The voice responded, "I am the reason this game exists."