The two people circled each other around in Kanbaru's living room. One with dancer like, feline steps, the other with deliberate, calculated paces.

Stirner's first of many attempts to subdue Ougi, who seemed slippery from the get-go, was simply to pounce. With sleeves fluttering she avoided the straightforward attack, and the ten subsequent ones as well.

"Arara~" she purred, "you're going to have to do better than that if you want to defeat me." Her sleeves pendulous, swinging, "But even then, you're never going to get rid of me." She smiled, and continued: "Honestly, think about it: I'm an established character. Who are you? An interloper. I have to get rid of you, Stirner-senpai."

"S-senpai?" Stirner mumbled.

In his small moment of weakness, she charged at him. Stirner only barely avoided the outstretched arm reaching for his neck and regained his composure.

"I have to do better?" he said, "This is a battle of ideas, spook. Much more so than a battle of dexterity. Do you really think you're going to corner me? I'll have you know I spent every free afternoon at the cafe of Der Freien. That's where ideas are tempered. You can't win against that. In the end, you can't win against that."

"What's that? Who's going to win in the end? Hahahaha~ It's me. It was decided before I was even introduced, there is no other way. What's your place in this story? There isn't one. Your presence... how shall I put it? It's meaningless. Everything you do is meaningless."

Stirner froze.

"Nothing will change," she continued, "it's futile, it's fruitless. You will leave no lasting effect on anyone. And why should you? Your own philosophy says so. Egoism, right? You're the creative nothing, you're the only being that matters- What are you doing here then, attempting to help someone else?"

Stirner hesitated. She made him feel weak. "I... I want to help... because..."

"You don't even know, do you? Fufufu~ I didn't expect anything less from someone like you. You already faded into obscurity by the time the century rolled around, senpai. The 20th century is your enemy, Stirner, and the 21st just as much. Philosophy has become a lot more sophisticated. You're left behind. Welcome to the age of derivative literature. Continental philosophy is over."

Stirner closed his eyes. "I want to help... because... it makes me happy."

"Oho~?" Ougi squinted, and whispered: "how meaningless."

She knelt by him, as by now he had fallen to the floor, drained of energy.

"I'll get you," Stirner quietly said. "You're a spook. You shouldn't exist. You don't... exist."

She laughed. "Arara, is that so? You're wrong, senpai. Here: I think-" she smirked, "...therefore I am."

Stirner flinched. There was no arguing with Descartes.

"Now, I think it's time for you to disappear." She reached out a sleeved finger to his forehead.

"No!" Stirner said, and rolled away. "You're wrong! I have plenty of friends in the future of postmodernism! You can't get me down just like this! Albert Camus! I summon your power of absurdism!"

A blinding flash. When Ougi uncovered her eyes, Stirner was up again, now pointing a slightly oxidised revolver at her.

"Regardez: l'etranger, mon petit fantome. En guarde!" he said in broken French.

And Ougi had to jump away as Stirner closed his eyes and hammered the trigger. Ougi would from then on have her silhouette outlined with bullet holes in Kanbaru's eastern wall.

"I find my own meaning!" Stirner said. The tides had turned.

"My, my," Ougi said, a bit more uncertain than before. "You've not been sitting still since you died."

"I've read a few things." Stirner conceded.

"Hoho! That may be..." Ougi said, "but you're nothing against the powers of Derrida!" And she pounced, though Stirner didn't budge.
"Think again you post-structuralist fiend! Gordian Knot!" he exclaimed, channeling the power of the ancient Greeks.

In mid air, Ougi's sleeves got tied together into a tangled mass, and Stirner sidestepped her so she landed with a muffled floof and somersaulted into a supine position. Stirner stood over her. Ougi stared up at him.

"I win," he grinned, and tossed his cigarette away.

"Oh no," Ougi said listlessly, obviously theatrical, though still on the floor, "whatever shall I do? Please spare me."

Stirner's glasses flashed. "Only if you call me senpai again."

Ougi shifted her weight so that her hips got accentuated, and moved her tied arms above her head so that her skirt hiked up. All in all she resembled the archetype of helpless innocence.

Incidentally, Kanbaru walked in right when Ougi moaned "please senpai, don't hurt me~"

"Koyomi didn't pick up his phone so-" Kanbaru was saying, and then she stopped.

A deafening silence fell over the room. Kanbaru's face was blank.

"Yo, what the fuck?" she said, and Stirner promptly legged it.

Banging on the bathroom door. It was locked.

"Don't worry, you can consider the spook busted, Kanbaru!" Stirner yelled from inside. "I'm not coming out though."
"Yes you are!" Kanbaru roared. Some heinous stuff had occurred in her absence, she knew that for sure. There were bulletholes in her wall, too. The latter made her the most upset: it would cost a fortune to refit the injured planks. She hadn't found the revolver yet, which had been kicked under the sofa.

"You're going to get out of there before I break the door in so I can beat you up, and then maybe you can explain to me what the hell you were doing with Koyomi's cousin and to my house! Whatever it was, it was wrong!"

"Morality is a sp-" he started, but then the door cracked slightly after a particularly hard bang. Reluctantly he turned the lock on the door.

Ougi's sleeves were still tied. Kanbaru couldn't manage to untwist the sleeves no matter how hard she tried, Ougi was obviously powerless, but Stirner refused to even come close to her.

"Never trust a spook. Especially when they're so tangible and... clever."

"She's not a spook you nutjob!" Kanbaru grumbled, her face buried in her palm. "She's a real person, dammit."

Stirner gave Ougi an incredulous look. "This small ghost went for my throat like a veteran murderer. Malevolent like a demon, she is. This isn't a human... this is a formless entity that... somehow found a body?"

"That doesn't make sense at all," Kanbaru mumbled.

"It will. There has to be a reason for... her. And her actions..."

At that point Ougi, who up till then prefferred to passively enjoy the hubbub, spoke up.

"What's life without some amusement, senpai? A cat plays with a mouse. Well, a snake too. And a mouse plays with a meal worm, and a meal worm plays with the dirt, and that's you. It's all amusement, ahahaha~!" Ougi giggled. Stirner caressed his chin in response.

"Hmm... Well perhaps she isn't a spook. Perhaps instead she's just... spooky."

Kanbaru's face remained buried in her palm, but Ougi giggled again. "Yes. You're quite amusing indeed."

And a hint of a smile crept on Stirner's face. He continued: "Spooky she may be, but I guess she's not a spook, then. In that case, I believe I might have been mistaken in coming here." His forehead creased: "strange as that may be. I'll happily accept the loss, and move on, though. Off to the next place that I'm needed."

"No, no, no, you're not going anywhere," Kanbaru said, "you're staying here until Ougi can move her hands again."

"Kanbaru-kun, as impressed as I am at the Thatcher impression, I have to say I'm fully capable of removing my shirt in case I need my hands, I hope you're aware," Ougi said.

"Your shirt stays on, Ougi," Kanbaru said, and that was that. Under the watchful eyes of Stirner she soon found that untying the sleeves was harder than it seemed.

"...I'll hang around for a minute or two, then," he said.

"It's the least you could do after trapping this innocent being." Kanbaru said.

"Innocent?"

"Of course. Look at her." Ougi, doe eyed, stayed quiet, "Nothing but innocent."

"In the end that did seem to be the case... somehow."

"Which begs the question... what the heck were you here for if not for her?"

"What I want to know is what she was doing here," Stirner dodged the question, nodding at Ougi.
"I was visiting a dear, kind, good-old friend," Ougi said.

"We know each other from school," Kanbaru said.

"Sounds like a watertight alibi," Stirner said.

"A lot more believable than what you've been telling me." Kanbaru said.

"It must've been a fluke, my instinct. I'll leave you two to this and move on to the next target, then."

"Give it up, man, we all know you're not going anywhere, and, damn, can this ever be untied or what?" Kanbaru said, throwing her arms up in defeat. Stirner mulled for a second.

"Have you never heard of the parable of the Gordian knot, Kanbaru-sama?"

She shrugged.

"I've heard of it, Stirner-senpai." Ougi said.

"Good! Then you know the solution to this problem."

"I faintly recall the knot was simply cut into pieces by Alexander the Great. My, my, the Greeks sure were smart," Ougi replied.

"A bit straightforward, perhaps," Stirner said. "Not a big fan of their metaphysics stuff. Anyway, check this out." A knife appeared in his hand, which he twirled around. "Occam's razor. Generally does the job quite well."

With a single slash, the knot was in tatters. Ougi's arms were free... and so was the rest of her body. Her entire shirt had been cut into pieces and fluttered like many cherry blossoms to the floor, her skirt turned to ribbons.

"Arara~ my clothes are gone. It ended up happening anyway," was her only reaction.

"Wha- what? Stirner did you plan this?"

"I swear I didn't! You can accuse me of whatever you please, but not for planning this."

He had averted his eyes to the ceiling, and looked rather embarrassed, so Kanbaru opted to believe him. "Jeez, I can't believe this. This day has been getting weirder and weirder. Hold on Ougi, I'll go get you something to wear."

"No need, Kanbaru. I am absolutely comfortable with this. After all, I still have my gloves. And my lingerie. Thanks anyway."

But Kanbaru had already gone off. "It wasn't an offer! You have no choice!" she yelled from somewhere in the house.

It was true, though. Ougi still had her long black gloves on... and her lingerie, which to Kanbaru to looked more like UNIQLO's discount garments.

During the minute it took for Kanbaru took to find a t-shirt, Ougi lazily swung her arms back and forth while Stirner leaned against the wall, tapping it with his fingers, very conscious to look anywhere except the half-naked girl and her porcelain skin and-

"Here," Kanbaru said while tossing Ougi a large white graphic tee. "Wear that."

'I heart BL'the shirt said in big, red roumanji.

"Ara, this is incredibly tasteful," Ougi commented. "Tell me, how does it look?"

"It looks terrible," Stirner said, quietly relieved Ougi had gotten dressed.

"Never mind that!" Kanbaru said, red-faced, "you can leave my fashion sense alone for now. Anyway, like I wanted to say earlier, Koyomi's not picking up his phone, and I kinda forgot what I wanted from him anyway."

"Arara, Koyomi always knows what to do doesn't he, that devilish boy?" Ougi said, looking ironically impressed.

"Why don't you come along, Ougi? I don't know if I'm fine with leaving you with Stirner-sensei."

"I'm quite alright actually, thank you very much," Ougi said, already seated with a cup of tea in hand.

"Don't worry, Kanbaru," Stirner said. "I'll be leaving along with you. As I said before: I'm not needed here at all, apparently, so I'll take this opportunity to skedaddle."

"What?" Kanbaru said, "you were serious when you said that?"

"I'm always serious."

"Well... that's debatable. But you can't leave."

"Why not?"

"Because we're barely six-thousand words into this story and we haven't even figured out the main goal of the narrative! We've barely finished up the third act, not the last- nobody'll believe you're really going to leave now..."

"But still, it's the truth," Stirner said. "I have plenty of stuff to do you know. I may not seem like it, but there's a few things I need to attend to. There's this girl Nadeko, you see. She's quite a handful. Lives close by, I think. Have you heard of her?"

"..."

"I guess not," he said, when Kanbaru didn't reply. She looked miffed. To his mild surprise, she told him to follow him to the door then, to which she walked with stiff steps. He followed.

Alone, Ougi calmly blew steam off of her tea. A bit satisfied, she grinned, just to herself.

"Stirner..." Kanbaru said, facing away from the man, toward the door. They were in the hall, out of earshot of the spooky little specter. "I-I don't really wanna say this at all but... Well, even though it was Ougi you ended up attacking... Or- or maybe she attacked you. Whatever. E-even though it was the wrong person... you managed to subdue her, which is quite cool and all. I mean she's a force to be reckoned with and- what am I saying?" She clenched her fist. "Right. What I'm trying to say is that... w-well, you're obviously the real deal. And though Ougi ended up not being a problem, maybe you can help me with that other thing..."

She finicked around with the bandage on her arm.

Stirner exhaled, and chuckled, a bit surprised. "Well," he said. "If it makes you happy, then I suppose it makes me happy as well. Of course I'll help. Whatever it is, I'll see what I can do. Now go fetch your boyfriend. Perhaps it's a good idea to go see him regardless of whether or not he's needed."

"What!? He's not my boyfriend... Yet." And with that she quickly ran out and slammed the door. Pocketing his hands, Stirner slowly shook his head, a grin still on his face.

He again sat down across from Ougi, fingers interlocked.

"My, my. Did she say anything exciting to you?"

"More or less," Stirner said.

"Let me guess," Ougi said, sipping tea, "it was something incredibly emotional that made you decide to stay here. What a contrived bit of drama crammed in right at the end. Is this what they call a cliff-hanger?"

"You're too savvy for your own good," Stirner said.

"Arara, you're not bad yourself, senpai. That aside, have you figured it out yet? Why I'm here?"

Stirner remained silent.

"It's her arm, of course. It's causing her more trouble than it should."

"So it seems."

"You're quite perceptive, by the by," Ougi said, "You noticed it while most do not: I am indeed not quite human-"

"I smelled you from a mile away," Stirner said, "like Bill Oddie would a beaver." Ougi's eyebrow twitched.

"-I'm not quite human indeed," she continued, "but I hope that won't stop you from partnering up for now."

"I don't see why not. Also, I must say I'm impressed with your performance earlier," Stirner said, "not many can corner me like you."

Ougi smiled. "That means a lot, coming from you, senpai."

Stirner declined to comment, instead lighting another cigarette. A silence remained. Ougi finished her tea, miasmic smoke around her. In between the twirling furls of ashen smoke clouds her dark round eyes turned omnipresent, ventablack, and penetrating, ready to siphon out your soul and keep it. She put the cup down with a large, elusive smile.

"Arara... Look at us: best friends... Right then. Status quo restored."

Stirner nodded slowly. "Back to where we started."

A bit later Ougi, with confidential tone, asked Stirner something while spreading her borrowed t-shirt taught: "say, this 'BL' that's written here. What, exactly, does it stand for?"