She stepped forward and stopped before Rabbit Girl. Less than a meter separated them, as though they were gazing into an absolutely clear mirror.
From this distance, Angel could even make out the rhythm of their fluttering eyelashes. They were so alike.
The delicate silence made Rabbit Girl feel an invisible pressure. Her lips moved slightly as she tried to say something to break the suffocating symmetry.
Yet the other woman spoke before she could.
"Precisely because I carry all of their memories, I can see more clearly than any other layer of 'me'..." Her gaze seemed able to pierce through appearances and reach straight to the core. "...There is discordant static on you."
Rabbit Girl's breath caught. She knew what the other woman meant.
"From Artistic Self to Strategic Self, whenever you reached a crucial juncture, your knowledge would always undergo a fault-line leap." Her tone was calm. "What came after those gaps was exquisite, accurate, and self-contained, yet utterly incompatible with the thread of knowledge you originally possessed."
"Encyclopedic Self gave me the answer to that." She tilted her head slightly, as though listening to those "voices" returning within her.
"There is only one answer. You, standing before me, are not truly alone. Behind you stand one or more 'Non-Selves.'"
"And that is why you have been able to keep clearing the trials."
"Am I right?"
Her tone was mild. Though she was asking a question, her eyes were utterly certain. Even if Rabbit Girl wanted to lie and deny it, she felt unable to speak.
Seeing that Rabbit Girl said nothing, she did not mind. She walked past Rabbit Girl and returned to the center of the seventh floor.
With her back to Rabbit Girl, she spoke softly, half sighing, half murmuring. "From the rules that birthed