I had never been struck with such a chill of fear as when I heard those words. I didn't even know what they meant yet, but I knew it wasn't going to be good.

"Mmhmm...you don't know them, of course..." She took a breath, before continuing. "I don't know exactly what they are...but from what I've heard whispered over the years I've been here, they're some sort of Gods...they live outside of our universe...well, universes. They brought the spirals to Kurouzu-cho, I'm sure of it. I can hear them whispering things, sometimes...it's like they're all around here. They used the spiral to invade Kurouzu, to drive my family, friends, and everyone in the town insane..."

I could see her biting her lower lip. I wanted to tell her to stop but I had to know what was really happening, and I had the feeling she wanted to tell me.

"I'm sorry...I haven't seen a living human in so long..."

"Don't worry, Miss Goshima." I said, laying my free hand on her shoulder in support. Haruhi was still looking around inquisitively.

"Th...thank you..." She composed herself slightly. "The Outer Ones...Outer Gods...whatever. They feed on chaos and horror. Kurouzu...it was a banquet for them. I think they come from space...it all began with the appearance of a cluster of spiral galaxies in space. Something to anchor themselves in my universe. Did that appear in your universe, too?"

My thoughts went back to the day I had heard of the astronomy club's discovery of the new planet. Yuggoth. I nodded, slowly. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought it would come out of my chest.

"Well..." Kirie nodded back. "Just think yourself lucky you didn't go through the same chaos as me...but I can't think why they wouldn't use the spirals to cause chaos in your universe, too..."

"Well, Miss Goshima..." I began, "Before my universe collapsed, I was talking with some people who had an idea of what was going on. Did you hear anything in those whispers about universe-fusion?"

She thought for a moment, then the sad smile returned.

"So...it really is happening..." She murmured.

"Huh? Happening? What do you mean?" I exclaimed. Hearing it described as a "happening" didn't do very good things for my heart. Not to sound like an old man or anything.

"There was universe fusion mentioned...the Eternal Spiral..." She sighed. It was a sigh of hopelessness, which made me even more worried.

"They wanted to use the spiral to encompass everything. Time, space, universes...the entire Macrocosm- that is, collection of universes in which we exist. I think they're trying to create-"

She was cut off by a loud blast from above. My head jerked up, and I saw a piece of the globe fly into the far side of the crater. I heard the loud cry of one of the Celestials, and straight away I knew what was going on- the Celestials had run out of streets to destroy and, seeing the glowing beacon of spirals, had decided to destroy that. I was wondering where the hell Koizumi was, and why he and his ESPer friends hadn't wiped them all out- they'd had plenty of time to do so.

Grabbing Haruhi's hand tighter, I turned back to Kirie.

"Kirie...we have to go...I have to get you out of there-"

"No."

Just one word. She was staring defiantly at me.

"Don't be stupid, I've got to get you out, the whole thing's going to collapse-"

"I said no. Look..." She turned away for a moment, then looked back. "I've been here for...years. Possibly hundreds of years. I've just been locked in this embrace with Shuichi for years and years, staring at the spiral to stop myself going insane..."

I was dumbfounded. Hundreds of years, unable to move...

"Save yourself! Any more life you can get for yourself...if that girl co-created this universe, then she can take it apart...all they've done is drained her of emotion- she should still be able to stop them-"

She was interrupted by another blast, this time coming from directly above us. I dived out from beneath the sphere, shielding Haruhi with my body as a chunk of the huge structure fell down, smashing into the ground where we had been standing. Now I could see into the sphere itsef- its interior was covered in hundreds of multicoloured spirals, rotating and giving off a mystifying aura, like a psychedelic police siren.

"Go! Go!" I heard Kirie yell, before the entire sphere collapsed. I froze for a moment, cursing the fact that I couldn't save her, when the Celestial responsible for its destruction rose up behind it. It gave off its bizarre roar, and then swung its arm at one of the spiral towers, shattering it into pieces. The pieces smashed against the ground, and I began to hear a rumbling sound, which sounded disturbingly like pieces of rock breaking away from something.

The Celestial took another step towards us, stepping into the ruins of the sphere...and falling straight through them. There was a loud boom as the ground collapsed under the giant's feet, falling into oblivion and carrying the celestial with it. Then, I saw the source of the crumbling, breaking sound- the crater was collapsing, disintegrating into nothing. Well, not nothing exactly. Beneath the ground I could see a sea of multicoloured spirals, spinning and radiating...

I shook myself out of my momentary daze, pulled Haruhi to her feet and began to ran up the side of the crater, as fast as my legs would carry me. This wasn't very fast, when you consider all of the stone faces on the ground there were to trip over. Eventually I managed to drag myself and Haruhi out of the crater and into the street, just in time to turn back and see the entire crater collapse into the spiral sea below. And I never thought I'd have to say a sentence like that.

Then, before I could take a single breath, the blue foot of another Celestial smashed down beside us. Without even stopping to think, I grabbed Haruhi's hand again and started to run down the street. The buildings were no longer just ruins but piles of rubble, and the street itself had cracks running all the way through it, as if there had been an earthquake strong enough to rip the very earth in half. Looking ahead, I could see the entrance to the highway- a bit of a weird sight, seeing as I knew I didn't go down the highway to get to the crater.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud electric screech from behind me, and felt a powerful force hit me in the back. In the second or two before I hit the ground, I thought the Celestial had turned on us after running out of things for it to mindlessly smash, but then I realised that if it truly had been the Celestial that hit us, we'd have probably gone straight through the ground and into the spiral sea that I assumed was everywhere beneath us.

Rolling over, I was relieved to see a huge hole in the centre of the Celestial, and even more relieved to see Koizumi hovering down to the ground, surrounded by his glowing bubble. By relieved, of course, I mean "glad he was alive", because there was no way he was getting out of forcing me to be Suzumiya's babysitter without giving me some compensation. And by that in turn, I mean fronting the bill for every SOS Brigade cafe outing over the next year. The smile he had on his face as he landed was even more infuriating.

"Ah, I see you and Miss Suzumiya made it out of there safely. I was worried about you." He said, in his laid-back tone. The Celestial roared for the last time, before shattering, like glass.

"You are so paying for that." I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm glad we're all safe, but really. Sending us to a massive spiral...city, plaza, whatever? What the hell were you thinking?"

"Well, I do apologise. I couldn't send you anywhere else, because there were Celestials all over."

"Ugh. Alright, alright..." Then a thought suddenly hit me. "That girl...I wonder what happened to her..."

"Girl?" Koizumi replied.

"Yeah, there was this girl down there, trapped underneath that huge spiral. Her name was Kirie, and she said something about "Outer Ones" and the spirals..."

"Oh, yes. Kirie Goshima." Koizumi said, nodding. This was utterly confusing.

"Wait, how...how do you know her?" I asked, bewildered. I got a thoroughly enigmatic response.

"Hmm, yes...the only one to survive the massacre at Kurouzu-cho...well, I say massacre. It wasn't, really. It was a curse."

At this point, Koizumi turned around and stared at the hole left by the crater. Suddenly, there was another loud rumble, and I saw the ruined buildings in the distance begin to collapse into the ground. A second later, the ground on the other side of the crater crumbled and began to break away, making the hole even wider. Koizumi didn't seem bothered by this.

"The curse that descended upon those of Kurouzu-cho...the hideous plan concocted by the Outer Gods, those that rule their universe at the court of the daemon sultan Azathoth, whose horrific mannerisms defy perception..."

His voice had changed. I could still hear Koizumi's normal voice in his speech(Which was how I could decipher what he was saying), but along with it there spoke a deeper, evil-sounding being, talking in a language I had never heard before.

"They would stretch out to other universes, other macrocosms...force everything into a stream of madness and chaos...messily merge the universes together...crush an entire macrocosm into a spiral of disorder and destruction...to feed...to feed..."

He then turned his head, and I was struck with horror. It wasn't Koizumi. If it WAS Koizumi, then he'd suddenly dyed his skin jet-black and adopted a pair of bright red contact lenses, and I'm sure that was impossible. I grabbed Haruhi's hand and slowly began to back away. It was when he turned around fully that I ran.