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“...Nya-hem! As I was saying! It’s time to introduce a variable to the experiment!”
“Variable…?”
“Mreheh, that’s right! We gave you all a few days to settle in and let us gather data, but now it’s time for the fun part! Motivation! A little incentive to get your bloodlust flowing!”
“...”
“...”
“Mrahaha, that got your attention? It’s your first variable, so we’re making it simple!” The room is silent, all eyes on the cat as they wait for him to continue. “The truth is, we’re installing stairs in the bunker!”
"To another floor?" Moichi widens his eyes.
"Nope!"
“Then, to some other previously inaccessible area?”
“Not that, either!”
"Then what's the point of-"
"Like, now?" Hanabusa-san asks.
"Yep! They're being implemented... right this moment, actually! By the time you step out of this room, they'll be there!"
"Where?"
"That's for you to find out!"
"For what preposterous reason would anyone murder another over stairs?" Ogasawara-san firms her posture. Well, more than it already was.
"Hey, that's not for me to figure out, I'm not the participant here!" Nyanus puts his hands on his hips in a huff.
“A-And the elevator?” Himari speaks up. “Is it gone?”
“Nope! Still there!” Nyanus chirps back.
“Then what is the point of-”
"Wait... t-they're being installed that quickly? Uh... how?" Hiroshi asks. "And by who?"
"Well if no one else has anything worthwhile to contribute, I think I'm gonna call it a day. Toodles~!"
Not long after, anyone interested shuffles out of the cafeteria to look. Among them is Hiroshi, clearly eager to procrastinate his newly-assigned dishboy duty, who returns her glance with an awkward smile and a small shrug. She glances over at the plates and follows him. If Nyanus hasn't stopped him now, he'll catch up to him later.
The group shuffles out of the double doors to glance upon the most logical place for stairs to be installed. Yet, the indoor balcony that peers down to the floor below is completely unaltered. No stairs in sight.
"Where the fuck are the stairs?!" Ishikame-san's loud voice bellows through the hall.
"Well, clearly not here." Hanabusa-san replies with her hands on her hips.
"Did I ask for your fuckin' opinion, dipshit? Why would you ever want to use the stairs, anyways?" He sneers.
"Well, fine! Go around and announce all the places the stairs aren't, for all the good it can do!"
Their voices become more distant as the two of them break away, Hiroshi walking towards the elevator lobby.
"We may as well check that the elevator is still intact, right?" He says.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Himari replies as they approach the door.
"Well, then, it should just be in here- GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" His scream wavers and tapers off as Himari pops her head in through the doorframe just long enough to see the blur of his body tussling down the final few steps.
"Hiroshi!!" She cries out. "Are you okay?"
As it turns out, a rectangle had been cut out of the floor of the 2F Elevator Lobby, and the stairs placed directly in front of the door. It was laid out horizontally to where she was standing; Hiroshi had somehow managed to fall off the stairs right before he had hit the wall.
"I'm... I'm- auh- I'm alright… b-but I've been better!" He groaned out, picking himself up onto his legs.
"Hey, Hime-chan, did you find the stairs? Nice going!" Hanabusa-san appears behind her.
"My my, did I just hear the sound of someone falling down a set of 12 steps and almost hitting a wall~?" Hakurei-san materialises with palpable eagerness. She peers through the doors, gaze flicking over the scene. "Hmm... perhaps it was 14..."
"I-I'm fine!" Hiroshi cries out from below. "Hey, the doors down here have moved!"
"Everyone, stay calm!" Moichi steps into the centre of the accumulated group. "We don't know what tricks Nyanus is up to. We need to assess the stairs closely to determine if they are even safe to use."
"Well, uh... Hiroshi just kind of, um... fell down them." Himari says.
Moichi stares dead-on for a second in a weighted, staticky silence, like waves hitting the side of an old, crumbling dam. Then, he sighs. "I see."
"So there are bruises to be treated~!" Hakurei-san calls out. From the bottom of the stairs, Hiroshi's eyes widen as he yips, and hastily scuttles through the 1F doors.
=====
The next time she sees Hiroshi, he’s more frazzled, the edges of his sleeves slightly damp. He has the ‘just did a shift of dish-washing’ thousand yard stare, that she’s all too familiar with.
“Hiroshi! Are you doing alright?”
“I mean… I-I’m doing fine enough…” He groans. “Those gosh darn stairs are a pain, though.” He rubs at his side. “Ow…”
"Y-You only fell down them once though, right?"
"Well, uh... actually it happened again. I kinda... forgot they were there." Hiroshi smiles sheepishly. "And then Hakurei-san found me that time, so she did a check on me. A-And stuck her fingers in her mouth. And told me to brush my teeth more. But hey... she didn't do any surgery on me! I-I think." He hastily pats down parts of his waist, looking at it with a flicker of concern. When their eyes meet, he flashes her a half-unsure smile. “I think.”
"That's... good to hear I suppose."
"Hey, you think if I fall in front of Ogasawara-san, she'll tend to me, too?"
"...I think you should just stick to the gift for now, Hiroshi."
"...Yeah, you're probably right."
=====
The next time she goes to the stairs, there’s a surprising hub of activity going on there.
“Oh, hi, Himari-chan!” Minesuga-san calls out to her.
“H-Hi, Minesuga-san. What are you up to, here?”
“An adventure!” He says cheerily. “Me and the bees are exploring!”
“...At the top of the stairs?”
“Yep! It may not be the most grand adventure, but it’s an adventure nonetheless!”
If that’s what keeps his spirits up… I suppose it doesn’t hurt.
She hears a consistent, persistent rhythm of stepping sounds from lower below, and peeks down.
“Yo! Hime-chan!” Hanabusa-san greets her equally cheerfully. “C’mon down here!”
“A-Ah, alright- Huh?” She hears the ding of the elevator, the shutting of the doors. She glances over, and for a split second sees Aikawa-san before the doors shut completely. Guess she’s still using the elevator…?
“Ah, um, I’m coming!” She tells the expectant Hanabusa-san, walking down, well, the pretty normal set of stairs. Honestly, the whole thing is still puzzling to her. There’s no guardrail… is that why it’s a variable in this… murder experiment?
“Hi, Hanabusa-san.” She greets her again, once she’s down there.
“Hime-chan! The stairs are weird, right?”
“Right… what’s even the point of them?” Himari responds.
“Heck if I know. But hey, there’s at least one good use for them!” Hanabusa-san is breathing slightly heavily as she doesn’t stop the motions of what she’s doing.
“Is it related to what you’re doing?”
“Bingo, Hime-chan!” Hanabusa-san replies. “They may be weird and I don’t, like, get the point of them, but heck if I’m gonna pass up such a good chance to exercise so many of my leg muscles. There’s like, so many different exercises you can do with just a set of stairs. You should try it sometime!”
“U-Um, maybe… I’ll consider it…” Himari says reluctantly, not entirely sure why she should prioritise setting up a work-out routine in a situation like this.
“That’s the spirit! Don’t get me wrong, I’d way prefer space to go for an actual run, but you gotta do with what you got, right?”
“Right. That’s the most each of us can do in a situation like this.” Hanabusa-san nods fervently in response to her words. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. See you around, Hanabusa-san.”
“See ya! As always, if you need me, call, and I’ll zip right there!”
Himari steps away, already on the 1st floor by now. She’s surprised for a second as she sees Aikawa-san's shadow quickly slip past her, blinking, before the other girl disappears. Before she can call or chase after that, another voice chips in.
“Servant.” Ogasawara-san’s voice rings out clearly, addressing her.
“G-Guh, um, hey, Ogasawara-san.” She responds, her body in a state of trepidation. She’s… not sure what to do with Ogasawara-san, and, well, Shiraki-san too, other than to stay the heck out of their way.
Ogasawara-san doesn’t dignify her with a response, her gaze fixed on the stairs, eyes tracking up and down it for a few seconds.
"Hmph. I expected them to prod us eventually. But merely plying us with discordant stimuli to see how we respond? Do they really think so lowly of us?"
It’s almost like you want a worse motive, Himari doesn't say.
“I, for my part, appreciate an alternative to that… strange box.”
“An elevator, Jiryu.” Ogasawara-san says with a hint of exasperation. Shiraki-san’s eyebrows remain furled.
“A strange box we cannot trust. We do not know where it will use its power of… electricity… to teleport us next. Aye, I am gladdened to be without it.”
Bewildered, Himari glances at Ogasawara-san. Before remembering who she’s talking to, and panickily averts her gaze. In that split second, Ogasawara-san gives a huff, but doesn’t press it.
“I… I s-suppose so. Elevators can be kind of scary… I know they’re safe, but the idea of them falling… Especially in a bunker this… well, old…”
“They can fall?!” Shiraki-san’s eyes shoot open. “Stay calm, my lady! I will protect you!”
“We’re not even in it right now!” Ogasawara-san says with greater exasperation.
…Maybe she should just leave those two be for now.
=====
As she’s just wandering around trying to figure out what to do with her spare time, she finds Kaguya-san standing near the bottom of the steps, on the second step above the ground.
“Oh, hey, Kaguya-san.” Himari greets her.
“Hey… to you, too, Himari-san.” She blinks, her expression her typical unchanging neutrality.
“So, um… how are you finding the stairs?”
“Bad.” Kaguya-san states.
“H-Huh?”
“Stairs… I do not like these stairs…” Her expression remains that same, neutral outlook, as she maintains eye contact with Himari. It’s strange to hear from her; she’s never once complained about any gift Himari has given her from the claw machine, even if it’s junk Himari hands over half-apologetically.
“W-Well, um, that’s fine, too. There’s always the elevator, so long as you mind your step.” Himari replies. “But uh, if it’s any condolence, it looks like you’re doing a great job with going down them already, I-I think.” Well, she’s not exactly sure whether Kaguya-san started from 2F and travelled down, or from 1F and travelled up…
“Mind… my step…”
“Oh, you like books, right? Well, technically if you stack books on their sides in a big pile, you could use them to make stairs too, right?“
“Stack books… to make stairs?” Kaguya-san shifts her expression down in ponderance, as if the idea had never occurred to her before.
“Y-Yeah. I mean… it’s not like I’ve seen anyone do it before… I mean it’d probably be kinda dangerous, but...“
“Is the moon… reachable by stairs?”
“Huh? Uhm… No. No it’s not, Kaguya-san.”
“Is it reachable… with book stairs?”
Himari blinks. “N-No, I don’t think so. I’m… not even sure if there’s enough books in the world to make a set of stairs that high.” Not to mention, they’d probably go flying off once you got out of the atmosphere… Does Kaguya-san even know about gravity?
“Not enough…” Kaguya-san tilts her head down again as she takes it in. “How many books are there?”
“Hmm… I’ve… never thought about it before.” Kaguya-san has suddenly come out swinging with a pretty difficult question. “But I’m sure it’s a lot. Too many for any one person to read in one lifetime, at least.”
“Lifetime…” Kaguya-san murmurs. There’s a lull in the conversation afterwards, one she wouldn’t call uncomfortable, but still foreign. Kaguya-san is… nice, but she’s so outside the scope of anyone Himari has ever talked to before.
“Thank you, Himari-san… I will consider what you’ve said.” Kaguya-san says with an expression of utmost earnestness, even though Himari doubts she’s told her much in this conversation worth poring over.
“No problem, Kaguya-san. If you ever have trouble with the, uh, stairs, call for someone and they’ll try to help. I’m sure Hanabusa-san will be there before you know it.”
“No… problem…” She hears Kaguya-san’s voice echo, as she starts to leave.
=====
“Um… What do you think of the stairs, Myoga-san?” Himari finds herself trying to make pleasant conversation one morning.
“It’s just stairs.” She replies. “Ain’t nothing more to it.”
“And you, Aji-san?”
“I… have to agree with her. I’m perplexed on the purpose of them myself, and I can’t see any specific purpose behind that complete absence of meaning, either.”
“I agree…” Inoue-san chips in. “Though, it good is good that the variable that is have being applied is are not wearing too the heavily on us all.”
“Um… what about you, Kutsuki-san?”
“Mmh, yeah. Can’t say I have many thoughts.” Kutsuki-san speaks in his typical mellow tone. “Life is kinda like stairs, y’know? You have ups… and you have downs.”
Okay.
“Eh, maybe I should try putting that in a song…” Kutsuki-san says, with his typical blank gaze.
Okay.” Himari says, out loud this time, unsure what she was even expecting.
=====
It’s been a few days A.S. (After Stairs), and life has continued on as normal. Well… as normal as it can be, right now. But no one’s tried to…
(She quickly diverts her thoughts away, as the mere shadow of that thought ripples distress through her body. It’s alright, Himari. No one would do that, right…?)
She walks over to the 2F Elevator Lobby, opening the door to find Moichi, looking down the staircase with an unreadable expression.
“Oh, Moichi!”
His expression barely flickers, as he looks down the stairs in deep thought.
“Why would they even…?” He mutters, his words filled with such perplexity that it seems like he’s in a trance. He still searches, apparently, she’s seen him around, but it’s as if the absurdity of the sudden staircase has grounded him. Ground him to a halt in the whirlpool of his previous, spiralling desperation.
“Um… well, if you’re not in the mood to talk… I’ll see you around?” Internally, she’s relieved that, somehow, he seems more okay. As she turns to leave, his eyes flick upwards towards her, for just a second.
She turns, and almost runs into the flurry of Hoshisaki-san’s jacket.
“GYAAAH! D-DON’T THINK YOUR A-AMBUSHES WILL WORK ON ME!” He cries out.
“Hoshisaki-san! It’s me, Himari!”
“Ah…p-purple…” He stops to blink, and take her in. “Sanada-san.” He gives her a shaky nod. “And the o-other Sanada-san… hog bristle quarter’s white… I saw him go in there, too.”
(...Why is Moichi’s shirt colour so detailed?)
“Moichi? Yeah, he’s in there. He’s kinda just… looking at the stairs.” It’s sort of like how Hoshisaki-san himself looks over the railing, though she’s not sure if they’re doing it for the same reason. “Um, do you have any thoughts on what they’re there for, Hoshisaki-san?”
“No. I have no idea.” He replies.
“Oh.”
…Guess no one has any ideas, then.
=====
“Ahem! ATTENTION, PURRTICIPANTS! I have an announcement to make!” Nyanus yells as they’re in the middle of trying to eat their food.
“What now?!” Hanabusa-san asks, exasperated. Not far from her sits Moichi, who has at least been convinced by the bizarreness of the situation to start sleeping at night again… That’s good.
“Oh, is it more stairs?” Minesuga-san says excitedly.
“No! No it’s not!” Nyanus yells out. “In fact, you’ve all been so boring that they’re being taken away! No more stairs! Ever! Starting immediately!”
“What a horror…” Hiroshi says dryly, hand resting on a bruised knee that’s almost healed.
“Immediately?! You mean your people are here?” Moichi immediately stands up, his back straightening.
“Naaaah, gotta leave the experiment untampered by external variables, or whatever. The creepy otaku over there fixed that oldie Nyanusofu back up, so I’ve just been having him do it!“
A faint “Gosh-darn whippersnappers!” can be heard in the halls. If you look closely, you can see Hiroshi shrink in his seat, a visceral gut reaction against the mere concept of employment.
Nyanus leaves soon after, after another tirade of grumbling about their boring, boring mundanity. After he leaves with a goofy spring into inexplicable nothingness, the group blink out their surprise at his arrival, the fact that he’s their captor a source both of lingering fear and confusion seeded amongst them.
Then, they quickly return to their meals as if nothing happened. Some go back to check afterwards, their pace leisurely, to find the stairs indeed gone.
=====
The body is found the next morning.