Steins;Gate is a story about time travel and the consequences of it's misuse. The protagonist is a man named Okabe Rintarou, a self-proclaimed "mad scientist" who goes by the name of Hououin Kyouma. He is about to attend a lecture from a man proclaiming to have discovered the secrets of time travel, Rintarou then challenges his theorem by claiming a man named "John Titor" has beaten him to it. He is taken away from the lecture by a strange girl named Makise Kurisu who asks him about a previous conversation they had not too long ago, but Rintarou has no idea who this girl is and leaves her - only to find out that shortly after his departure she has been stabbed to death. Perplexed by these recent events, Rintarou sends a message to a friend named Itaru concerning Kurisu's murder. As he clicks the "send message button" he is unconsciously thrown back in time a few hours, but somehow can still remember what had just happened later on in that day. Dumbfounded by this experience, he begins to piece together a successful method of time travel. On completion, he begins to misuse this power by helping out friends with past dilemmas, not considering the weight of his actions. Eventually leading to consequences so great, he questions whether or not time travel was worth discovering after all...