A small hole manifested itself inside Marisa's house, and from it, Yukari stepped out, "Yoohoo!"
She found Marisa staring straight at her with a hakkero pointed to her face.
"That's hardly a way to treat a guest."
Marisa put down her hakkero, "Guests knock."
"Yes, well, this is rather urgent."
Marisa looked at Yukari with a grimace, she didn't like the problems that Yukari brought, "What now?"
Yukari rapidly changed her tune to a grim one, "I suggest you do whatever you can to stop Nitori's latest project."
"She can't make a well?"
Yukari shook her head, "I'm afraid it's not just a well, it's gone deeper than that," Yukari gave a wide smile, "It may have even hit the bucke-".
Marisa pointed the hakkero back at Yukari, "Come now! Let me have a little fun!"
Marisa rolled her eyes and put the hakkero back down again, "What's so wrong with her project?"
Yukari pointed at Marisa's scrying ball in her house, conjuring up an image of what looked like television static over an endless horizon, "A metal gel will consume and destroy every living thing."
She lifted her finger back up, the image disappearing with it, and left back into her portal.
Marisa grumbled. She didn't understand why making a well would have anything to do with that, but she knew Yukari's powers often bordered on omniscience.
She got on her broom, and started heading off to where Nitori was planning on setting up that well. Only the moment she got into the air, she noticed in the distance a hole that made the Kola Borehole look like child's play. As she got closer, she noticed a gigantic facility beside the hole covered with more piping than most modern chemical plants.
"Ze. Yukari really was probably right."
She quickly forced her way in. A labyrinth of large, industrial pipes darted around the facility, along with distinct humming of pipes. Marisa followed the pipes, continuing along wherever she saw more pipes converging together. Eventually, she came upon a control room.
She burst the door asunder, "Nitori!"
Nitori didn't notice. She was deep in thought amongst a number of screens in front of her.
Marisa grabbed Nitori by the shoulder and shook her, "Nitori! Wake up!"
She didn't turn around, "I am awake! I'm busy, Marisa!"
"Doing what?!"
"I'm making a hole!"
Marisa stood dumbfounded, "What?"
Nitori spun around, her face beaming, "It's a brilliant solution, you see, I keep meeting all these people whose sole reason for doing something is for its own sake, right? The millstone, the witch, you. And here I was, digging this hole for this well, and I thought, 'Well, what if I made an even bigger hole? What if I did the same thing as everyone else, and dug for its own sake!' Now, I admit, it wasn't the most well thought out task to engage on, but I was already working on it, so it was easy to grasp. At least, that's how it started, but-"
Nitori faced back to the control panel, getting back to work and setting various switches off as she tore off the control panel to add in some relays, "I thought it wouldn't go anywhere, and yet here I am now. I've never felt this way for this long Marisa."
Marisa blinked in complete confusion, "You want to...dig holes, ze?"
"Yes!"
"You mean just...diggy...hole?"
"Of course!"
"But...of all the things you're capab-I mean, you can do so mu-I mean...why?!"
"Don't you see? Now I won't have to do something to steadily work towards! It's a continually ever progressing goal!"
As she clipped in some wire, Marisa could hear what she presumed were chemicals began flowing through the pipes in the plant. And as if hit by a sixth sense, Marisa anxiously remembered Yukari's precognition with a sudden jolt, "Nitori, what is this?"
Nitori moved out of the control room and towards the next vat installation, as servos began to descend from the ceiling, "Before, I would have to go through this cycle of misery followed by a sudden jolt given by one of your distractions, and all the while I was wondering if something was wrong with me."
Marisa thought, There is something wrong with you Nitori,before she continued a bit more adamantly, "Nitori! What is this machine!"
"Oh, this? This is the nanobot machine. This one took a lot of work, but it's really going to accelerate the hole digging. Isn't this great? It only gets bigger! It's completely intractable! I can always keep adding to it, more and more!"
Marisa continued to persist, ignoring Nitori's monologue about her inner psychological motivations, "What do these nanob...nanos do, Nitori?"
"They eat dirt, and replicate. And they just keep doing that. Going down and down the hole. Ah, but then I'll just face another problem near the thermal layer, and I'll have to make a new batch of bots with different specifications. Isn't this just wonderful? This problem just keeps giving."
Marisa quickly came to the realization of the term 'grey goo' by herself upon hearing Nitori's description. She also now understood what Yukari's vision was. She had to stop this-
Nitori put her hands on her hips, staring at the nearly-complete vats, "It's just, for once in my life, I feel like I have a driving purpose, you know? Now I've finally realized how to stop my on-again off-again suffering."
Marisa stared at Nitori, now feeling a stabbing pain of guilt in her heart.
"Look, Nitori, maybe you could do this in a more thoughtful way...?"
Nitori looked at some gauges, mumbling, "The flow rate doesn't seem quite right."
"Nitori!"
She was lost in thought. Marisa tugged at her hat, whispering to herself, "Oh come on, the one time you finally figure something out for yourself."
Nitori jotted some numbers spewing from a machine and started walking off to another room, Marisa came to a nerve-wracking thought-
"Nitori, how long until the machine is complete?!"
She almost seemed to have a skip in her step as she replied, "Not long now! Assuming these calculations are correct, the first prototype will be leaving the machine in just a few hours!"
Marisa was really starting to get nervous, she ran in front of Nitori trying to get her to look her in the eyes instead of continuing to look at her latest domineering obsession, "Nitori, is that 'a few hours' as in 'a few hours until you finish the machine,' or 'a few hours until the machine finishes?'"
Nitori blinked, and then almost laughed, "Why, a few hours until the machine finishes, I wouldn't be this pumped up if I just had a prototype of the machine to build a prototype!"
She continued humming away, with Marisa getting ever more anxious to stop Nitori from unleashing a grey goo apocalypse. She stopped, and looked at Nitori just be...happy. This was probably the longest stretch of genuine joy that Marisa saw Nitori have...ever. Ever since she had known her, she always alternated between a mess of a nihilistic black hole to the most engaged, thoughtful person she had ever met. If she destroyed this, then would she end up destroying Nitori?
It's not like I have a choice, either Nitori completes this machine and literally destroys us and herself, or-_
Marisa pawed away a tear from her eyes, Or I guess I just have to bring her crashing down again.
Dammit, Nitori, Marisa pulled her hat over her head as she squated to the ground trying to calm herself down, The one time you find any semblance of joy, and you can't even have that. I'm sorry...
"Hey, Nitori."
Nitori singed back over her shoulder to Marisa, "Hm?"
"So what?"
Nitori's ego gave a small, vain attempt at mental fog, "So what, what?"
"So, you make a big hole? What's the point? You make fun of all these people who push on to do something for its own sake, but isn't this just the same thing?"
Nitori, without even realizing it, suddenly got defensive, "Yeah, so what if it's the same thing? If those other people can do something for its own sake and be so content with it, why can't I?!"
Marisa looked up at Nitori, "Because you never have, and you never will be! You know the pattern, a week from now you'll wake up and think, 'A big hole, and what else do I have to show for it?!'"
Marisa stared back at the ground to hide her own tears, because she knew that this time Nitori's ruin was going to be her own fault.
Nitori stared off for what felt like an eternity, her mind frozen even more, "I knew that-I knew that, so why, why did you have to remind me," she wiped her face, "Why couldn't you just let me have this?"
Marisa stood up, and motioned at the gigantic pit they were in, "Trust me, I know you so well that I of all people didn't want to, but look at how gigantic this is! If you keep going, yours is going to be the only dream left in this world!"
Nitori threw her wrench across the room and fell to the floor in tears. Marisa bent down to embrace her.
"It's alright. I know you too well, Nitori."
"Then why? Just-" she didn't finish the sentence.
"I don't know, I think, maybe, in the end, it is a bit circular, you know? Some people are more direct, they get their desires straight from themselves, with no thought at all. Others find them from love, as sentimental as it sounds. And others still, well," she brought her arms up from embracing Nitori and grabbed her head on both of her cheeks, "They just have to be given a good case to work on. Even if they do have to struggle inbetween."
Nitori planted her face against Marisa's chest.
"There there."
"Mm."
Marisa held her for a while, letting her calm down.
"What do I do now?"
"Don't worry, I'll find you something."
"You'll still keep visiting me, right?"
"Yeah yeah."
"Alice won't get mad."
"She'll probably help."
"You'll keep giving me good cases?"
"Don't worry that far ahead, it'll be alright."
"Mm."
Marisa patted her head, "Just give me some time, alright? I'll find you a volcano to fix."
