The pearly white sky of Akihabara shone with an ethereal glow, illuminating the streets with a crispness that Okabe had rarely seen before. The shopfronts, cars on the road, even the people were all lit up by the dazzling whiteness that seemed to pervade his eyes, and yet didn't stop him from seeing the area clearly.

It was bustling, typical for a rush hour in the area, with the pavements and roads filled with people coming and going on their business. Some were walking into stores, others were staring at the phones while walking along. None seemed to be interacting with each other though, forming a shapeless sea of bodies moving like a brisk, rough sea.

There was a surreal element to the air that Okabe couldn't place, something that seemed simultaneously odd yet natural, but he paid it no mind.

After all, after an unmeasurable amount of time, he'd finally made it, so he could forgive his senses struggling to believe his surroundings.

This was the goal to which he had devoted himself; the goal which had dominated his every waking hour for what felt like years:

Steins Gate.

Okabe was attempting to manoeuvrer through the sea that was Akihabara, succeeding thanks to years of practice, moulding his way through the crowd without a second thought. His eyes were down, seemingly fixed to the pavement, his hands in his coat pockets – his signature look, as he would put it.

To those passing him by, he would have been a small oddity perhaps, with his dishevelled appearance a stark contrast to many of those in the crowd, the scruffiest of whom could barely light a candle to the image of 'Mad Scientist Hououin Kyouma'.

Those accustomed to the area, however, would likely have ignored him as just another Otaku in what was the centre of Otaku culture in Japan, arguably the world.

Okabe had rarely given much thought to his appearance in those terms, since looking 'odd' was all part of what made him Hououin Kyouma. A well-dressed Kyouma is nothing but impossible, a contradiction in terms.

He smiled slightly, thinking back to a time where that had been attempted, and failed miserably.

No, Hououin Kyouma was a maverick, and had to appear as such. All the great geniuses were messy, dishevelled and sporadic; he was merely a continuation of that pattern.

If anyone wanted to see a genius with better dress sense, he should just point them towards Kurisu. She may not have the flair for the mad pursuit of science he possessed, but she certainly surpassed him mentally.

Not that he'd admit it, of course.

He lost his train of thought for a moment, zoning out for the smallest of moments as his thoughts drifted to her. He smiled sadly, his mind drifting to the memories they had shared in the Alpha worldlines.

"Hey, watch where you're going, idiot" came a voice, dragging him out of his reminiscing and back into reality. In his zoned out state he'd accidentally bumped into someone.

"I'm sor-" he started, only to find they'd already stormed away, disappearing into the crowd almost instantly.

Okabe shook his head, and chuckled. "You're still causing me problems assistant."

He once more looked up to that pearly sky, remaining motionless in the crowd, and blind to the irritated stares of those having to walk around him.

"I don't know where you are, but I'm happy that you are here to experience this world. After all, it wouldn't be a world I'd want to live in if you weren't in it."

He smiled. "You don't have to be by my side. You don't have to be my assistant to make this world worthwhile. You just need to live and be happy."

He paused for a moment, closing his eyes for a moment. "Steins Gate is my gift to you, Kurisu."

He dragged his eyes away from the dazzling sky, feeling a sense of release at the outburst. No-one else had heard it, he'd been speaking no more than a whisper, but he didn't really care. Those words had been just for him and her, even if she wasn't there to hear them.

As his eyes fell, however, he became aware of a figure standing just behind him, staring at him intently.

Clearly a woman, her chestnut hair shone in the light, her eyes dazzling as they looked at him. The clothes were familiar, an outfit he had grown accustomed to in his time in the Alpha worldlines, and they had barely changed from when he last saw them.

It was his assistant, clearly.

She had a shocked expression, staring at him with her eyes clearly trying to formalise words. She seemed on the cusp of a deep recognition, the kind close friends would have after decades of not meeting, her eyes betraying an internal struggle as they stared at him.

Okabe closed his eyes and grinned, basking in the confusion emanating from his assistant for a few moments. It was rare to see her like this, and he was going to enjoy it.

"So, you have finally come to rendezvous with me Assistant, as I always knew you would!" he cried, pulling off one of his dramatic poses, letting his lab-coat fly in dramatis.

It earned quite a few glances from the bystanders walking by.

He let out the best Kyouma laugh he could, and refocused his sight back on Kurisu, who was just as confused as she had been prior, but with a new focus in her eyes.

"I'm not your damn assistant, how many times-" she started, before losing that fire and covering her mouth with her hands.

"What is this?" she said meekly. "I remember… What do I remember… You saved me, but why do I know you?"

She began to look more than just confused, but visibly distressed, and Okabe knew why, almost too well. After all, he'd seen it with Faris. Her mind was having distant memories of the Alpha worldlines, and those memories were conflicting with the ones from the current worldline.

Reading Steiner.

Her seeing him seemed to be bringing a barrage of them, she must clearly be in possession of a relatively strong Reading Steiner. Stronger than even Faris', based on how quickly the memories were flooding in for her.

Without knowledge of the phenomenon, it could be a very disconcerting experience, especially given the sheer volume of memories she likely had conflicting at the moment. After all, both of them had spent a lot of time together in those worldlines, even a fraction of those memories coming through would be heavy to unload on someone.

He decided to drop the Kyouma act ("Persona," he corrected himself, "it's more than just an act"), and closed the short distance that had been allowed to exist between them by the sea of people ever moving past them.

Their volume had remained constant, forming a natural barrier around them, and Okabe began to be grateful for that, since it discouraged Kurisu from fleeing from him in her confusion – something that could potentially be quite harmful with her dealing with Reading Steiner for the first time.

"Kurisu" he said, with all the possible authority he could muster as he moved toward her.

"You used my name" she replied, but even as she said it she second guessed herself, her eyes becoming continually more clouded by confusion, a feat that Okabe would've sworn was impossible unless he had seen it happen.

Okabe stood in front of her, looking at her, before flashing her the best smile he could.

A genuine smile from Okabe, rather than one of his more… madly expressive Kyouma smiles.

"I guess you're a little confused right now. Is it memories you didn't have a few minutes ago?" he asked softly.

"My minds full of events, moments, that didn't happen. They feel so vivid though… I keep seeing myself in situations I've never been in. I keep seeing you and me acting like we're friends, but we've only ever met once..." She furrowed her brow and trailed off.

"SERN!" Her eyes lit up in a panic, that just like her anger earlier at Okabe's nicknaming dissipated as soon as it came, but the after-effects remained. A clear sense of unease hung over her. Tears began to form at the sides of her eyes.

"What's going on?"

Okabe embraced her, clutching her tight against his chest, and she offered little resistance. She was visibly shaking, and dull sobs could be heard.

"I can explain it Kurisu, I can explain it all. You're safe now, and none of the dangers in those memories can touch us now."

"There's one memory in particular that I can see clearly" she mumbled from his chest, breaking through the soft sobs.

"What is it?" asked Okabe gently, continuing to hold her close. "That can be the first one I explain."

She suddenly stopped shaking, and the sobs stopped at a speed Okabe thought impossible. It was like a switch being flicked. He loosened his grip a little in surprise, and she pulled away when she felt it.

She stood in front of him, the confusion gone from her eyes and replaced with a fiery fury directed solely at him. Her hands were at her sides, forming fists, and she took an aggressive stance towards him.

"Kurisu?" Okabe asked meekly, confused by the sudden change, and concerned as to what had bought it on. Was she this badly affected by Reading Steiner?

"Kurisu please, calm down, whatever you're remembering didn't happen, you're safe now." he said, trying to calm her.

He searched his mind for the possible memory that could've triggered this, but his brain turned up no results.

Her eyes only increased in intensity, the anger in them ever intensifying and she mumbled something as she began to move forward.

She began to move toward him slowly, and then with a dash, by the end almost diving into Okabe with a speed that he wouldn't have thought possible.

She crashed into him with enough force to make him stagger back.

After crashing into him, she backed away, and he felt something on his chest as surprise wore away. No, IN his chest.

The crowd had disappeared, though Okabe couldn't recall when, leaving him free to stumble backwards away from Kurisu, who was standing just before him. He stared at her, aware of a climbing agony in his chest, but his eyes were unwilling to move from Kurisu, who met his stare, and see the cause of the pain.

As if reading his mind, she said "Feel free to look", which led him to look down.

His t-shirt was discoloured, the stain expanding rapidly and unabashedly, losing its original colour. Instead, there was a grim red stain spreading down his torso.

And at the stains root was a blade he recognised too well for comfort. It's handle was adorned with markings, and was small enough to be concealed easily.

It was unmistakably the knife that Nakabachi had wielded in the radio building.

Okabe began to feel dizzy, and fell to his knees. He used his arms to prop himself of the ground, but he was rapidly losing feeling in them too. His mind raced, struggling to fully comprehend what had happened to him through the pain and confusion.

He slowly lifted his head to look at Kurisu, a movement that was slow and painful. Every motion of his body added to the excruciating agony emitted from his chest, the numbness that surprise has awarded him long since faded.

Okabe attempted to speak, but found words difficult to come by, both mentally and physically. It hurt to even attempt speech, let alone speak properly, and his mind continued its struggle to grasp the situation, impeding most attempts of his to think of a response to the situation.

Eventually, after what had seemed like an eternity, his mind was able to formulate one question from the flurry of emotions and thoughts racing through his head.

"Why?" he asked in a breathless voice.

Kurisu's eye's still bore into him, the vulnerable girl that he'd tried to help being replaced by the force of pure confidence standing before him. There was no more confusion, only a rage that was being targeted solely at him.

"You killed me Okabe, you killed me."

She walked over to him, endlessly repeating those words. Okabe couldn't tell whether she sounded angry or disappointed, since his hearing was becoming incredibly muffled.

"You killed me you killed me you killed me you killed me you killed me..." she uttered endlessly, as he struggled more and more to make out her voice.

"No, I… I saved you" Okabe breathed, his vision beginning to blur and his senses overwhelmed by the pain. His arms gave way and he tumbled onto the ground left side first, rolling him onto his back.

The jolt it gave him brought a sharp spasm of pain that made him cry out, but all that did was bring more pain, so he fell back into silence.

Kurisu stood over him, a dead look in her eye, and Okabe noticed a stab wound matching his on her torso, bleeding heavily. The blood trickled down off her, intermingling with his own spreading pool of blood.

She remained unfazed however, appearing unaware of any pain.

"You failed Okabe."

Kurisu lifted her leg up, preparing to stamp down on Okabe. All Okabe could find the energy to do was weakly lift his hand towards her, barely making her out as his vision darkened.

"Never forget that you failed."

Her foot came crashing down onto his face.

Okabe awoke with a cry, a cold layer of sweat covering his body as he was thrust out of his slumber. His heart raced with a pulse that reverberated through him, and his mind raced with similar speed, images of the dream crashing through him.

He was in small room, plain in almost every way. It had a neutral white paint covering the walls, the furniture – consisting of a small bookshelf, his bed, a bedside table and a desk – had a new-wood sheen to them, the kind of look flat-pack furniture typically has when it hasn't seen much use.

Enhancing the neutrality of the room, there was little to denote Okabe's presence. The desk was completely clear, with no signs of recent use. The bookshelf contained few books, and they clearly didn't belong to Okabe, being various novels by obscure authors.

It was a lifeless room.

Okabe's breathing was rapid, verging on hyperventilating, leading Okabe to grab the canister of medication he had by the bed, swallowing them dry as soon as he had grabbed them. He felt them crawl down his throat with revulsion, their dry taste lingering, but he endured.

His body shook, and after swallowing the pills sat motionless for a time indistinguishable to Okabe. He took solace in the dark, his mind racing over the dream his mind had gifted, and tried to find some peace.

He knew this was a pointless endeavour, this constant reflection on his nightmares, but it was perhaps the only thing keeping his sanity at this point. After all, this nocturnal routine had been the only constant in Okabe's life for some time.

This dream, or at least a variation of it, was a nightly ritual for Okabe, every time his mind dared sleep, Kurisu was there to remind him of the failure he was.

No, more than a failure. A murderer.

Her murderer.

He winced, but did little more. His mind had berated him so many times, forced him to see those images so many times, he lacked the drive to even feel sorrow about them.

Only in his sleep was his full range of emotions available, and it was there his purgatory lied.

"How long has it been since those dreams began?" he asked himself audibly, unwilling to contain his thoughts to just his traitorous brain.

Okabe felt sharp stabs of grief and terror hit him repeatedly, both attempting to gain dominance over him. The images of Kurisu, from their time together in the alpha wordlines, danced in his mind, toying with him as the images of her corpse, the body he held in his arms, intermingled with them.

The pangs of terror sourced themselves from the grim reminder of what his failure meant.

2015 grew ever closer, and the world was already mobilising.

He noted that sorrow wasn't even a part of these emotions. The grief in particular was better characterised by regret and self-loathing, the knowledge that it was he who was responsible for her death.

Underpinning it all though was a void. There was no sadness – there had been once, before Summer last year there had been a heart-wrenching distress that refused to lessen its grip on him.

Okabe had always hoped, somewhat morbidly, that he would one day adjust to the pain, and learn to carry it. When he saw the flames rising over Akihabara however, it overcame him.

He pondered for a moment. "That was where it began, those terrible dreams. That day, when he fell into that first terrible sleep, all the sadness he had felt was evaporated.

And instead replaced with an emptiness that merely enhanced the grief and regret.

Okabe got out of the bed, knowing that sleep would elude him, and walked over to the solitary window in the room.

He was in the house of some family who had decided to rent out the room, hence the plain attire of the room. Okabe had been passing through, and had decided to take the cheap room until he decided to move on.

He looked out on the small town the house was located in, and tried to recall its name. But he couldn't. He didn't even know its general location, beyond semi-rural Japan.

Since the attack on Akihabara, and the revelation that Dr Leskinen and Stratfor were aware of his Reading Steiner and willing to use any means necessary to capture him, Okabe had felt compelled to go into hiding.

It had suited him just fine, every step away from Akihabara a blessing.

Therefore, the last year had been spent travelling without any plans, without any co-ordination, living a truly nomadic lifestyle, impeding any attempt of Stratfor's to track him, or so he rationalised it.

"I threw myself on the whims of God" he muttered to himself, continuing to stare somewhat blankly at the town sprawled out before him.

"That's what that day was for, wasn't it? To show me what my punishment for breaking the laws of God were."

His voice was tired and carried a monotone note to it that even he noted with some alarm, although he did little with that information. He rarely had to use his voice, beyond simple tasks such as purchasing tickets or food, so he couldn't bring himself to care too much.

As such, any raised concern was subsequently ignored.

"I thought that my punishment was Kurisu. But it was this, wasn't it. Losing control of myself to fate, and becoming just its vehicle."

He sighed, and looked at the faint reflection of himself in the mirror. He was haggard, with his hair unruly – even more-so than it had been back in his Kyouma days – and his eyes carried bags under them that were so profound they seemed like make-up.

The stare he gave himself was blank, devoid of anything. No sadness, sympathy, judgement or regret. The reflected eyes were simply pointed towards him. It was a face simply turned in his direction.

As he remarked upon this, however, a faint feeling began to stir within Okabe, a dull sense of regret not for his actions towards Kurisu, but rather towards the woman who he'd destroyed due to him continuing to interfere with fate, the only other person he'd seen with an expression similar to the one he now carried.

Although his eyes betrayed nothing, Okabe was surprised. He had not given this thought for quite some time.

The woman who, thanks solely due to him, had been forced to become subservient to a madman and betray him.

The woman who had broke through all of that to free him from Stratfor, and begged him to achieve the impossible.

"Maho?"

He turned away from the window, unwilling to look upon the man who doomed her to a fate worse than death any longer. He instead walked back to the bed, his mind continuing to replay the last conversation the two had ever had.

"If I'm around you, I might betray you again."

Her distress had just about broken through whatever Stratfor had done to her, and her dull eyes welled up with tears, her face creasing up, restraining sobs as her thoughts had no doubt lingered on what had become of her.

"I know this is selfish, but I want you to do something for me."

There had been a shift in her posture at that, but she still struggled to look at Okabe squarely. Her eyes were initially devoid of anything, save for the faint, surreal tears spilling forth despite the lack of life. However, a light began to slowly become dimly apparent within them.

"Please, find Steins Gate."

The dim light had receded, and the zombified eyes took over once again, as Maho looked down at her feet as she explained what had happened during his captivity. The weight of the world that had weighed down on her as she stormed the Stratfor base with Kagari was given to Okabe.

"While you've been captured, something terrible has happened to the world."

She told him of how wrong everything had gone. How this world turned out to be a nightmare, and that he had been freed from one hellhole only to walk into another.

Okabe grimaced at the memory. "A Gehenna of my own making" he uttered.

But while Okabe had receded into despair, Maho had found something to cling onto, a final hope that there could be some deliverance.

"Please, reach Steins Gate no matter what."

That request had been the only time, and the last time, in that exchange that her eyes had been truly filled with something resembling life, dwarfing the dim light that had earlier risen.

For a moment Maho Hiyajo had returned, her eyes losing the dead quality that Stratfor's procedure had inflicted on her completely. There had been hope.

Hope that the horrific situation they had all been caught in could be changed.

Hope that she could be rescued from her own personal hell.

Okabe sat down on the bed, debating whether or not to attempt sleep again. He knew that it couldn't be achieved naturally, but he could always resort to the sleeping aids he had as a last resort – a rarity for him since that would mean a dreamless sleep.

A sleep free from the haunting of his mistakes, and the consequences of his stupidity. Free from being forced to see Kurisu in pain, or see her troubled or suffering because of him.

But that was just the thing. Those dreams were his only chance to see Kurisu, and he clung to them.

He looked up at the ceiling. "I can't let go Kurisu. They're all I've got" he said, almost hoping she could hear him.

He sorely hoped there was an afterlife, despite once being a supposed man of science. It was only there that he would be able to see her again, and apologise to her for everything.

'Even though I'm using my nightmares as ways to see her' he thought to himself with disgust.

Despite his reluctance, however, he found himself reaching for the small rucksack he had under the bed, which held all the possessions he carried with him, and contained the sleeping drugs.

The image of a hopeful Maho – a new addition to these nightly rituals of nightmares and self-reflection – asking him the one thing he hoped no-one would ever mention wouldn't leave him. And in some ways, it was worse than the nightmares.

There he was punished, and treated like he deserved, but Maho… Maho looked at him with hope and confidence. That had been her final image.

A bit of her had truly believed in him in those dark hours, believed that he would save them all, foolishly trusting him instead of scorning him as the creator of their woes as she should.

He needed that image gone, the begging voice reverberating around his ears to stop. A year ago, who knows how he would've responded to this?

Today, it was a cold apathy that colours his response, or so Okabe liked to frame it. After all, apathy meant letting the world take its course without his interference.

He pulled out the sleeping pills and quickly took them, lying down on the bed and awaiting their effects.

"Looks like I won't see you for the rest of the night Kurisu" he said to himself, as he felt the drug-induced drowsiness begin to take over.

He gave himself over to the drug, attempting to slip away as quickly as possible, but regardless he still couldn't suppress Maho's image completely.

Her voice, dull but still very much present, continued to echo around his ears.

"Please, reach Steins Gate no matter what."

It reverberated right up until sleep finally overtook Okabe, and he slipped into a dreamless slumber.