FINAL CHAPTER

“Huh?!”

I wasn’t even sure which version of myself those words came from. Probably both of us, simultaneously. But what reached my ears wasn’t unison or a duet, but rather the voice of a single person.

Immediately thereafter, a terrible flood of memories rushed through my head. They were unfamiliar-tasting, memories that I can only describe as being completely foreign. I closed my eyes and spun on. I put my hands over my ears reflexively, as my instinct was screaming at me to refuse any more outside information.

“Unggh…”

This confusion was far worse than time travel with Asahina, and it churned my brain. Unfamiliar scenes, unfamiliar actions, unfamiliar situations, unfamiliar history… they attacked me, becoming scenes, actions, situations, and history that I did know. They swirled like a yin-yang symbol, and it felt as though I had been tossed into the middle of that whirling maelstrom.

A series of flashbacks played against the insides of my tightly closed eyelids, flowing by like a revolving lantern.

—The entire SOS Brigade going over to nurse the fallen Nagato—the rage I’d spat out when I ran into Kuyoh, the revived Asakura, and the mediating Kimidori—myself, meeting several times with Sasaki, Fujiwara, Kyoko Tachibana, and Kuyoh—being taken by Fujiwara to Sasaki’s glowing closed space—myself, being tutored by Haruhi after class—the brigade candidates failing the entrance examination Haruhi was pushing on them—Yasumi Watahashi, the only one left behind—that same Yasumi learning how to brew tea from Asahina, then futzing with our website—the paper airplane saying she’d found the MIKURU folder—the mysterious flower—

Both of these were definitely me. All of these were my memories, without contradiction or incoherence.

What was going on here?

Haruhi’s recruitment efforts, fueled by her spring fever upon the start of the new semester. Nobody coming to the clubroom. The room overflowing with applicants. The phone call I’d received in the bath. The person on the other end of the line—.

That was where things split.

I now know it was Yasumi Watahashi, but at the time it was a voice I hadn’t recognized.

The phone call from Sasaki had been a serious matter for both me and the SOS Brigade.

That was the moment.

From that moment on, the world had been split in two.

Into the foolish brigade entrance examination and the serious lecture from Haruhi. I had seriously agonized over the time line of the latter. Sasaki’s closed space and the cosmic horror of Kuyoh Suoh’s reaction. And then Asakura’s reappearance and Kimidori’s serious-business mode…

The sole successful applicant, the new brigade member Yasumi Watahashi’s mysteriously positive actions, with Nagato’s total lack of reaction and Koizumi’s vague statements.

Two versions of my memories of the past week now existed within me.

What was going on here? It wasn’t a question of which was true and which was false. Both were true, real memories. The only thing I could conclude was that I myself had split and experienced the same time line twice.

Because neither set of memories felt at all strange. It wasn’t like I had absolute confidence in my powers of recollection, but if we were talking about things I’d experienced, that was a different story. The only commonality in them was the phone call I’d received in the bath, where one was Sasaki and one was Yasumi—and from there, they were totally different.

From that moment until now, I’d been leading two lives. That was all I could imagine.

And then those two sets of memories were trying to fuse like elementary particles colliding at the speed of light. I could practically hear my synapses crackling; I held my head in my hands.

“Guh… rgh…”

My head didn’t hurt, nor did I feel nauseated or drunk; it was just that the speed at which my memories were revolving was—this is no way to explain it, but—they were like a spinning yin-yang symbol moving so fast all I could see was gray. Does that help? The differing colors of the two sets were blending into a single color. The spinning didn’t stop, and it just kept being gray…

“… Mmph… hngh… unh.”

I stiffened my body like a hermit crab, but finally the typhoon in my head slowed. Though I still felt confused, I’d recovered enough to open my ears and eyes; enough to steady myself against the brigade chief’s desk, and stand on slightly trembling legs.

I had barely enough energy left over to take a look around the inside of the room, however fuzzily.

And that’s when I noticed.

I was one again. The other me who had been here just a moment ago had disappeared somewhere. But that didn’t seem particularly strange to me. Why? The reasoning was quite simple. One plus one is indeed two. But I knew there were times when that wasn’t so. For example, if you add one pile of sand to another pile of sand, all you get is one big pile of sand.

Instead of addition, a more appropriate form of arithmetic for the occasion was multiplication. And even an elementary school student knows what you get when you multiply one times two. You get two.

The other me had disappeared. In his place, I now had two sets of memories.

In one set, Nagato was perfectly fine, Haruhi had conducted her brigade entrance examinations, and Yasumi had made her appearance. In the other, Nagato was sick, I had spent a lot of time talking with Sasaki and company, Kuyoh had attacked me, and Asakura had been revived.

The two sets lined up perfectly in my head. It didn’t even feel strange, somehow. I understood everything so well that that fact itself was mystifying. If you have two sets of memories in your mind at the same time, shouldn’t that be confusing?

—Not necessarily.

Yasumi’s voice answered. Only her voice.

—They’re both you, Kyon. It’s not that one is true and one is counterfeit. You just have two slightly different histories. Of the same time, in the same world.

I looked in the direction from which her voice was coming.

She wasn’t there.

Yasumi Watahashi had disappeared. Along with the other “me,” like smoke from a sparkler, as though she’d never been here in the first place, she had completely vanished.

Where had she gone?

In the case of “me,” I understood immediately.

Fusion.

When Yasumi had placed my and “my” hands atop one another’s, we had been unified within this time line. It was simple. We’d had the same personalities to begin with, because we were the same person. It was only because of someone’s speculation, or some strange circumstances, that I’d been split.

And now I’d returned to normal.

Still, what about Yasumi? Why had she been able to do such a thing? And where had she gone? The window and door were both still closed. To disappear from the middle of a group of people—had she teleported, or had she been an illusion to begin with?

But what I couldn’t explain was that Fujiwara and Kyoko Tachibana had apparently seen Yasumi. Their expressions of surprise were certainly not faked. And going by their reaction to me being in the room, they hadn’t expected that either.

Thus it was with a rare show of emotion on his face that Fujiwara spoke. “Defying the chain of fixed events…? It can’t be… Was there someone who released the prohibition ahead of me…? Who—who could possibly…?” he said in a voice that showed rage, bafflement, and irritation all at once. “What’s that? A nonstandard abnormality that’s not on the schedule? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Whose work is this? Who called her here?”

He stomped on the floor in irritation.

“Dammit, this wasn’t part of my plan. Kuyoh, where are you? What’s going on here?”

A peal of thunder rang out.

The dingy window of the clubroom flashed, throwing shadows on everyone in the room. The sudden lightning that fell from the sky had an indescribable color to it. I reflexively looked outside, and was greeted by a scene that was even harder to believe, and groaned.

“… What’s happening with the sky…?”

The heavens swirled. The faintly glowing cream-colored sky was interrupted by an angry blue-gray swirl, colors intertwining like colliding galaxies in a bizarre display. Here and there, pale light and dark gray tendrils wriggled, as though fighting for control. The color was like india ink dropped into a container of light paint, stirred by the brush of some mad artist.

It wasn’t just the sky—everything framed by the rectangular shape of the window was being drowned by the two colors. The grass in the courtyard, the tall school building, the hallways, the leafed-out cherry trees—everything.

I could tell that this was still the palely colored world. I was still inside the closed space that Sasaki created.

But the other color that wriggled and squirmed as though fighting against those pale hues—I’d seen that before too.

It was Haruhi’s closed space.

Haruhi and Sasaki were struggling with each other, right here, right now.

Why? I knew that there existed a world I’d occupied with Sasaki up until a moment ago. I wondered if the reason Kyoko Tachibana brought me all the way back to North High was to somehow extract its essence.

But why had Haruhi’s closed space now appeared? Haruhi was supposed to be at Nagato’s apartment… no, wait—she was just on her way home from school—ah, damn. I didn’t know.

What were even less clear were the geometric patterns that flickered here and there throughout the world here as I saw it. I’d seen this before too. It was very similar to the data jurisdiction space that Asakura had created.

What was happening to this world I’d found myself in? It was like every weird phenomenon I’d ever seen was happening at once. Seriously, what the hell?

“—This is the beginning. The division point of every possible outcome…”

A gloomy voice reached my ears. I looked up and before my eyes was a figure with bizarrely ink-black hair down to her knees, dressed in a black blazer.

With less expression than a Roman statue, Kuyoh Suoh stood between Fujiwara and Kyoko Tachibana. There was no emotion in her eyes. Her pale lips moved minutely, vibrating the air.

“—Past and future, and even the present, do not exist here. Matter, particles, waves, and will. Consciousness of reality. The future becomes the past, and the past, the present…”

I didn’t feel obligated to be surprised at Kuyoh Suoh’s sudden appearance. But would it kill her to at least pretend to breathe?

But before I could complain at her—

“Did you betray me?” said Fujiwara, his eyes those of a predator staring at its natural enemy.

Kuyoh smiled. Nobody could keep up with the sudden emotional changes of these extraterrestrial-made agents anymore.

“No. I have come here. That is the answer.”

“So what is this, then? It’s like the world is—” Fujiwara’s words cut off, and he went stiff, as though he were receiving some kind of divine revelation. Then, he continued in a strained voice. “—I see. I can’t believe it. So it’s already diverged, has it? Who in the hell…?”

And then, with timing as though not wanting to give Fujiwara a chance to finish his question—

Click.

The door abruptly opened.

“Hello, there.” With that easygoing smile as if it was any other day, he waved casually to the room, giving me an extra little wink. Unsurprisingly, my reaction was immediate.

“Koizumi?!”

“Indeed, it is Itsuki Koizumi, just as you say. The one and only, in the flesh. I was actually hoping to make a slightly more dramatic entrance, but it couldn’t be helped. You know, something like crashing in through the window. But there just wasn’t time to consider it.”

“Surprise” is the number-one word I don’t want to nominate for describing how I felt in that moment. “Shock” is number two. So, how, then, should I express it? I honestly don’t know myself.

Itsuki Koizumi strode grandly into the room, then glanced at me, Fujiwara, and Kuyoh, finally giving Kyoko Tachibana a look as though he were regarding a little sister.

Kyoko Tachibana looked even more stunned by Koizumi’s sudden appearance than I felt. “It can’t be,” she said in a high, shaky voice. “This is Sasaki’s closed space. Koizumi, you shouldn’t be able to enter it!” She sounded like an honor student who’d gotten a big fat X on a test she’d been sure she aced.

“Unfortunately,” said Koizumi, giving an exaggerated bow as though he were on stage, “As far as this school is concerned, it does not exist only within the world you and your comrades closed off. Feel free to look outside.”

I didn’t have to. I’d already seen the gray and sepia tones mixing together. This was a world where Haruhi’s closed space intermingled with Sasaki’s—I was forced to admit that was the only way I could describe the view that greeted me.

“That can’t be. This isn’t Suzumiya’s—” Kyoko Tachibana began, then gazed up at the void. Her body trembled like a doe sensing the footsteps of an approaching hunter. “So that girl from before… that’s what she was…?”

She spoke as though having realized something, but—what? Why did they understand something I didn’t? Why, when I was at my utmost limit just trying to resist the desire to hold my head in my hands from the total confusion of it all?

To make matters worse, I soon realized that the trials of my psychological limits were only beginning.

From behind the lanky form of the lieutenant brigade chief emerged another form, at whose appearance I felt the strength leave my body. I’m surprised I didn’t collapse on the spot. Honestly I think the only thing that stopped me from falling backward was the strength I’d naturally gained from walking up the hellish hill to school every day. I’d like to say it was the first time since starting high school that I was thankful for my commute, but I’ll reiterate that at that moment my mental capacity was maxed out with processing the visual data from my immediate surroundings, so my brain was stressed nearly to the point of explosion.

So it’s no surprise that at the appearance of that particular individual, neither my mind nor my mouth was capable of any reaction.

“Hello, Kyon.”

She wore a white blouse and tight skirt that did nothing to disguise her curvy figure. She was like the platonic ideal of the sexy teacher, and I was indebted to this beautiful woman many times over. She smiled that same tender smile I’d seen so many times before.

“… Asahina, what are you doing here…?”

It was all I could do to squeeze out that one strangled line.

The adult version of Asahina. Asahina the Elder, the grown-up version of my Asahina. The true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool time traveler emerged from behind Koizumi and stepped forward.

“I got Koizumi to bring me. Infiltrating closed space is one of his abilities, after all. You do know that, don’t you?”

I thought back to the time when Koizumi had taken my hand and brought me into the closed space that existed in the city. When it came to the freezing enclosure that was closed space, I’d experienced it once with Koizumi, and once with Haruhi.

“I really wanted to have all the cleaning tools ready before I appeared, but… time travel wouldn’t bring me here,” Asahina the Elder pouted, sticking out her tongue a bit. She was just as seductive as ever, and it threatened to turn me into Jell-O. She was no different from when I’d seen her during the Tanabata incident four years earlier, her beautiful adult body bountiful in all the right places…

While my mind was occupied with such revolving-lantern illusions, the high school esper boy/lieutenant brigade chief addressed the person next to him in a deeply satisfied tone of voice.

“I’m honored to finally meet Asahina’s true form. I’m glad you seem well. It doesn’t seem as though you’re operating under many restrictions here, so if possible I’d like to have a nice long chat.”

“That’s not necessarily true. This is the first I’ve heard of it. It was special, a top-level classified secret. As far as this operation goes, I’m just a single piece of it.”

I only recognized a small part of her statement, and understanding it seemed likely to take an infinite amount of time. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

Asahina the Elder was controlling Asahina the Younger, but was there someone above even her who was moving the pieces around on the board? What kind of person was that? Was there really a level above Asahina? An Asahina Deluxe? But no, this was no time to be thinking about that kind of thing.

“Hey, Koizumi,” I said, finally. “Which Koizumi are you?”

Koizumi lifted his arms in a familiar shrug. Overacting no matter what the circumstances was the guy’s specialty.

“I’m both. I too was fused a moment ago. If pressed, I suppose you could say I’m the α version.”

α? What kind of code was that? I asked.

“Ah, pardon me. It’s merely a convenient label. You’re in the same situation. Both of us, as members of the SOS Brigade, now have two sets of memories. One is from the version of history where we were busy with the entrance examinations for new members, and the other is the version where Nagato fell ill, throwing the the SOS Brigade into dysfunction. It occurred to me that it would be useful to be able to differentiate between the two, so I started calling the first one α, and the second β. Any objections?”

No, none. He could call ’em A, B, or N for all I cared, since either way, they were unified now.

Koizumi looked at Fujiwara, Tachibana, and Kuyoh in turn, chuckling. “It seems that your expectations have been significantly disrupted. And indeed they have. We can’t have you underestimating us. None of you yet understand Haruhi Suzumiya. Undoubtedly you’ve done your homework and prepared your countermeasures. Otherwise there’s no way you could’ve implemented a bold battle plan. But Suzumiya, our awe-inspiring brigade chief, cannot be outsmarted by a half-baked time traveler, a shabby esper, or a barely competent alien. She may not be a god. But even as only a being who happens to possess godlike power, she’s a human beyond your abilities to analyze.”

Koizumi reached into his blazer pocket and produced a fancy slip of stationery.

“This morning, I found this in my shoe locker. Shall I read it?”

I acted as the representative for everyone in the room. Read it, I told him.

“Please come to the school gate at six o’clock this evening.”

The sender name was—Yasumi Watahashi.

So Yasumi had left a letter for someone other than me. But why Koizumi?

“The β version of myself followed after you, when you headed here with Sasaki, Kyoko Tachibana, and that time traveler. Meanwhile, the α me came to the school gate as directed. There, the two versions of myself saw the same thing—good old closed space. But I hadn’t felt any premonitions of its appearance, so it was rather surprising. Then, Asahina here called out to my β self. Then just before I entered closed space with her, I met my α self alone. You know the rest. The moment we touched we became one person, and I understood everything.”

“That’s your weakness, Koizumi,” said Asahina the Elder. “Although it’s certainly true that you were necessary.”

“You must be joking!” Fujiwara’s angrily shouted words echoed in the room.

I assumed he’d lost his temper with Koizumi’s rambling explanation, but his keen, laser-scalpel gaze was aimed only at Asahina the Elder.

Fujiwara’s body shook, and the rage within him distorted his features; compared with his usual state of looking down on everyone and mocking them constantly, he was like a different person. This was the first time I’d seen him express such raw emotion.

“You’re… you’re really going to go this far in interfering with me? Are you really trying to solidify that future, even if it means splitting the world in two?”

“Even if you edit an already-fixed time plane, our future will not change. No, it must not be changed,” said Asahina, her expression pained, but resolved.

“It will change. Not because of you, or me, or anyone here. It’s impossible for us. But with the power of Haruhi Suzumiya, it’s possible. If I could use her power, I could remake everything about the space-time information I’ve lived in,” said Fujiwara. “I could completely and perfectly rewrite everything from this point on into the future. Not by individually altering time planes little by little, but by correcting every plane on into infinity!”

Fujiwara stopped shouting, and looked down as though having just finished vomiting. He murmured.

“I just… I don’t want to lose you, my sister.”

It was an astonishing line. Huh? What did he say? Sister? Asahina was his sister? As in, Fujiwara’s? Which meant Fujiwara was Asahina’s younger brother… but the Asahina I knew had never given a single hint of that, or anything remotely like that. Was this some kind of once-in-a-lifetime joke from Fujiwara?

Asahina the Elder shook her head. Her chestnut hair swayed sadly. “… I don’t have… a brother. And likewise, the me who is your sister does not exist. History that’s lost… people that are lost… can never return.”

Asahina the Elder’s answer only spurred on further confusion. But Fujiwara’s expression only turned more serious. “That’s why I came here! To this time plane, where people wallow in the folly of their lives! Back to this foolish past, that we can never forget though we might wish to. I want to get you back—that’s why I joined forces with that extraterrestrial intelligence. What other reason could there be for dealing with such a—”

“Please, forget about me. You mustn’t use the TPDD for such things. We’re not beings that should be here in the first place. You must understand how important Haruhi Suzumiya is for this time plane. If it weren’t for her, our future would be…”

“I know. That’s why I bet on a second possibility. What the future needs isn’t Haruhi Suzumiya, but her power. If it could be transferred to someone else, other possibilities appear. And my ally, Kyoko Tachibana, found the perfect person.”

Kyoko Tachibana’s shoulder shook again. When I looked at her she was looking down, but then her slightly teary eyes met mine.

Little by little, I was starting to understand.

Of course. This “perfect person” was Sasaki.

“She can control it much more skillfully than Haruhi Suzumiya. It would be better for us. We’d be able to access infinite possibility. We wouldn’t be trapped by fixed events. We’d be able to erase them—we could choose our future. That’s what I want, my sister! I want to choose a future with you in it!”

He was just going on and on. I wanted to tell him he was an idiot. By now I knew perfectly well just how kind and decent Asahina the Younger was. She hadn’t been told anything. Not about the intentions of the future, nor about the usefulness of Haruhi and Sasaki.

That was a rare virtue. Who cared whether she was skilled or useful? Asahina the Younger was the most lovable time traveler I knew. She was our time plane’s only ally, because she wasn’t trying to change the past, nor was she trying to control Haruhi.

That’s right. Just think about it. If I could travel into the past and move around however I liked, I would certainly use my knowledge to interfere with history. Ten years ago, a century ago—the further back I went, the less likely it was that I would resist such a desire.

But Asahina hadn’t done anything. She came from the future just to play with Haruhi. I was only then realizing just how incredible that was. No one other than Asahina could possibly have filled that role. If Fujiwara had been in her place, I doubted the SOS Brigade would ever have been founded at all.

“No,” continued Fujiwara. “I don’t care what happens to the world. I can’t lose you.”

“The person native to your time line is not me. I do not have a younger brother.”

“It’s the same thing. The fact that you were lost in my time line means that you will be lost at the intersection point in the future.”

“The future can be changed. As you changing things can be changed.”

I wanted to compliment my ears and brain for not missing that line.

What did she say? What had Asahina said just then?

“It cannot! Your future is the past to someone beyond it. You yourself should know that fixed reality must remain unchanged—you know that perfectly well!”

“That’s why we exist.”

“But we cannot travel back past four years ago. There’s no way to correct the time plane. A rupture always appears. So we should be able to do it here.”

“That’s something I can’t allow. Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“I understand better than anyone. You’re not the only ones constantly adjusting the time plane in order to ensure the correct future. That’s right, the TPDD.”

Fujiwara kept going, as though he’d forgotten that Koizumi and I, to say nothing of Kyoko Tachibana and Kuyoh Suoh, existed.

“A double-edged sword can be useful. Time travel using the TPDD is necessary in order to maintain the normal state of the time plane. But that same travel damages the plane itself. It wasn’t simple to repair the holes in time caused by the TPDD. But while I was pursuing this, I discovered other phenomena. We cannot change the past. Nor the future.”

“So why are you here?”

“For the sake of now, this time. By accumulating instants, moments of time, we can construct time itself. We’ll bring the material of the ‘present’ into the future and continue to change it. We’ll need only to keep repairing dislocations in the time plane.”

“That’s impossible. Do you have any idea how much energy is required to destroy fixed events?”

“It can be done. I’ll say it as many times as I have to. If we have Haruhi Suzumiya’s power, it can be done.”

Kyoko Tachibana did not seem to be able to keep up with the conversation. “Um… er… just what does this…” She couldn’t erase the dazed look on her face.

Fujiwara ignored the poor girl entirely, and continued.

“I’ll rewrite all of space-time from this time plane through to the future. I don’t care about the history along the way. If we can fix space-time in our future, then we’ll have the luxury of being able to worry about the past.” His face slightly green, he gulped. “And Haruhi Suzumiya has been doing that for a long time now. Since long before we came here.”

“That’s an unforgivable act. You’re… you’re trying to commit what is a serious time crime in your time line.”

Asahina the Elder’s expression was full of sorrow, and no small measure of unmistakable desolation.

In the midst of the time travelers’ dialogue, Koizumi suddenly spoke up in a somewhat jovial tone, as though he’d utterly failed to read the room. “Sorry to interrupt the argument, but I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Asahina. I suppose this isn’t actually the first time we’ve met, but I thought I should reintroduce myself, just in case.”

“Koizumi…” Asahina the Elder forced her downcast eyes up to regard Koizumi.

“Asahina, from your perspective, we haven’t had an encounter in quite some time, correct?”

“That’s probably true.” Asahina the Elder’s face bloomed in as beatific a smile as Koizumi could ever manage. Like a witness who’d noticed a prosecutor’s leading question. “I can’t tell you anything, Koizumi. You’re a highly dangerous person, even among people of the past. There are things that even I am prohibited from doing. But no, even if it were something I could say, by my own judgment I wouldn’t. You’re simply too clever. A single careless word from me could become ten words’ worth of information for you. I’d love to reminisce with you, though. That is the truth.”

“I quite understand. Those words alone are enough for me. You’ve told me what I am, and how I’m viewed in the future. Even if that was fake, it amounts to the same thing. I’ll do my own information analysis. Above all, I should thank you, Asahina. Thanks to you coming here, I’ve understood what it is I need to do. The fact that you appeared in front of me is quite extraordinary. Which means that I’m going to face that extraordinary thing myself too. You could not face what’s going to happen alone; you must need my power. No, not only my power—Suzumiya’s power too. Am I wrong?”

“Asking questions you already know the answers to is an interesting hobby. I felt this way before, but even so… Koizumi, out of all the STC data, you truly are an irreplaceable individual. That’s why you were invited into the SOS Brigade. You were chosen by Suzumiya.”

“I’ve become aware of that, yes. At first I only half believed it, and explained it away as the product of happenstance, but now I no longer doubt it. I am part of the SOS Brigade. As is Nagato, and your younger self. So what about you, the grown-up Asahina? What did you learn when you returned to the future? Why have you come back to this past, or are you merely here to interfere with your former self? Please, explain your position to me.”

“What if I said it was… classified information.”

“I would not be surprised. I’m sure if I went back into the past, and the inhabitants there asked me that question, I would tell them the same thing. However”—Koizumi’s keen eyes regarded Fujiwara and Asahina the Elder equally piercingly—“I would ask you not to underestimate the humans of the past. We are not so very foolish, you see. I won’t go so far as to say this applies to all humanity, but humans deeply concerned with the future certainly do exist.”

I was struck by the sight of an aggressive edge to Koizumi’s gaze that I’d never seen before.

“Little by little I’ve come to understand this, thanks to all the commotion that the various aliens have caused. Suzumiya’s ability… the ability to change reality—it’s not permanent, is it? It’s not that it weakens with use, but it’s not something that she will possess forever. Eventually it will disappear. Am I wrong?”

“Well…” Asahina said, obviously attempting to evade the question.

“It’s not as though you’re being pressed to choose. When they want to do something, they control you as they please, thereby controlling Suzumiya. The power she has can even be transferred to another. Nagato once managed to do something similar, so these aliens can surely do likewise.”

Kuyoh was standing there like a wooden statue; Koizumi shot her a contemptuous look. “It may be presumptuous of me, but there’s something I simply must say. So I shall.” He took a deep breath, and once again revealed his true thoughts. “I’d like to ask you not to underestimate the people of Earth. We’re not such stupid creatures as you might think. Regardless of what the Data Overmind or other alien intelligences might say, we’re quite clever in our own way. At the very least, there are those among us who strive for that.”

He regarded the enemy time traveler with a smile that had more than a hint of challenge in it, and continued. “Wouldn’t you agree, Fujiwara?”

“Shut up. Your clever nonsense makes me want to vomit,” spat Fujiwara, his eyes looking as though he’d already prepared himself for utter ruin.

A warning signal was blaring away in my head, flashing red and yellow lights. This was bad. He was getting ready to snap. Fujiwara had obviously lit the fuse on his own self-destruct mechanism. The premonition of it overwhelmed my psyche like a magnitude-nine tsunami.

Fujiwara’s state of bitter self-recrimination was made clear by his dark muttering. “… I’m an idiot. I should’ve done this from the beginning. Heh. No matter how many words I waste on them, these ignorant fools will never understand. Kuyoh—do it.”

Everyone put their guard up. Kuyoh did not so much as blink.

“What’s wrong, Kuyoh? Carry out our agreement,” came Fujiwara’s overbearing order. “Go kill Haruhi Suzumiya!”

What to say in this situation, given this development? For my part, should I say that I was able to consider those shocking words calmly?

A container. Yes, Haruhi’s powers could be stolen. Even Nagato had done it before.

A container. Which meant Haruhi’s powers could be given to anyone. But it would all depend on the person.

A container. Who was closest to Haruhi now? It went without saying.

The quickest way to force Haruhi to lose her powers would be her death. A corpse had no will. And it would be a shame for that wonderful supernatural power of hers to go to waste… or so the alien, time traveler, and esper were all thinking.

And conveniently, there was a perfect container right at hand. One less capricious than Haruhi, less eccentric, one less incomprehensible, one who wasn’t the chief of the SOS Brigade, one with more serenity and common sense. My former classmate.

Sasaki.

It was enough to make a strange thought flash through my head. What if Haruhi’s godlike powers had blossomed in Sasaki from the beginning?

That was what Fujiwara was trying to do: kill Haruhi and turn Sasaki into the new god. She wouldn’t rampage the way Haruhi did. Naturally Sasaki wouldn’t easily go along with whatever Fujiwara and the others told her either. But Fujiwara and Kuyoh might have been confident that they could force her. Maybe they would brainwash her, or deprogram her, or… take someone hostage. That hostage could well be the entire world.

Or me. Would I be made a pawn in this game?

The hell with those idiotic ultramaroons.

If they gave Sasaki any trouble, I’d do everything I possibly could to resist them. And it wouldn’t be just me. I was sure I could depend on Koizumi and Asahina the Elder. And if Nagato were here, she’d want to help too. She probably still couldn’t move very much, though. Otherwise, I imagine she would’ve shown up right about when Kuyoh did. At this point, I’d take Asakura or Kimidori too.

So come, already. Hurry up. Actually—why hadn’t they? Damned useless aliens. The next time I saw them I was going to give them an earful.

Fujiwara pressed Kuyoh again. “Bring Haruhi Suzumiya’s life to an end! You said you could!”

“—”

Her unfathomable expression frozen, only Kuyoh’s crimson lips moved.

“—Some phenomenon is hindering my movement. Or, the Haruhi Suzumiya present in this space-time continuum is surrounding me three levels deep. Also, I cannot escape from this closed space. Complying with your directive code is difficult.”

Fujiwara clucked his tongue. “Damn you, we come all this way and you expect me to be satisfied with that?”

“I said it was difficult—” Kuyoh’s long hair began to float up. Next, her eyes flashed red, her mouth pinched into an upside-down V. The words that came to my mind were “evil witch.”

“—However… I can summon the subject… yes, like this—”

She raised her thin arm, and pointed out through the window with her index finger.

Everyone, including me, looked in the indicated direction.

“Augh…!” I couldn’t help letting out a cry, and I didn’t have time to hate myself for it.

Because—

Outside the third-story clubroom, floating in space a few meters past the window past the brigade chief’s desk, was—

“Haruhi!”

It was none other than the school uniform–clad form of the person I’d spent the entire first year and change of high school with, the owner of the seat directly behind me in class, whose face I’d seen nearly every day, the master of the literature club room, and the chief of the SOS Brigade.

Immediately I rushed to the window and threw it open, and you can bet during that interval I didn’t avert my gaze or close my eyes for an instant.

“Haruhi!”

There was no response. Haruhi was floating there in the air, eyes closed as though she were asleep, her face the picture of innocence. Her lips were slightly parted and her body moved as if she was breathing. I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely sleeping or if she’d been rendered unconscious. With her arms and legs hanging loose, she looked like a broken doll, and she didn’t open her eyes when I called to her.

“—I have forcibly transported this entity from outside closed space. The entity in question is recognized by all present as Haruhi Suzumiya. I have fulfilled my obligation.”

“Not yet.” Fujiwara turned back and glared at Kuyoh. “My requirement was the death of Haruhi Suzumiya. I didn’t ask for her to be brought here alive.”

“—Implementation forthcoming.” Kuyoh’s mechanical face reddened ever so slightly. “Given the gravitational acceleration of this planet, a human falling to the ground from this altitude will sustain fatal injuries—. Within this high-mass atmosphere, this is the most basic form of death. As a method of ending the function of an organic life-form, this has been determined to most closely match the available natural phenomena.”

“I see,” said Fujiwara maliciously. “That’s a rather roundabout way of doing it. If that’s how the Heavenly Canopy Dominion thinks, I’m impressed.”

Having said so, he turned back to me.

“So this is how it is, you pathetic throwback. Killing this girl is trivial. So what will you do? I’d love to hear your decision. Will Haruhi Suzumiya’s life be ended here and now, or will you make your dear Sasaki the new god? Come now—which will it be?”

What a cheap threat. And his acting was a total cliché.

Rage welled up within me. Time travelers and aliens were both idiots. Did they think I—or, uh, Haruhi—would be able to do something about this? Saying “die” or “I’m gonna kill you” only proved that he was an angry child. Honestly, if this is what people from the future were like, then I didn’t have much hope for the fate of humanity. Were we really going to entrust the future to these jerks? Really?

They shouldn’t have underestimated me. They shouldn’t have underestimated Haruhi. More than anything, they shouldn’t have underestimated Haruhi.

“Stop!” cried Asahina the Elder. “This is meaningless! Is it catastrophe you wish for? By the laws of time travel, this would be the worst crime imaginable!”

“I don’t wish for this. But if it will ensure the existence of my time line, I’ll wish for a new time. Even if it means I myself disappear, I’ll bet on you. You’ll remain, sister. I’ll make you remain. That’s all I want.”

Fujiwara chuckled grimly, as though trying to sound as evil as possible. “Kuyoh, construct a symbol that’s easier for this dense audience to understand.”

Her body not moving at all, Kuyoh’s faintly shining eyes swiveled toward Haruhi.

As Haruhi floated in the air outside the clubroom and three stories up, her body began to change position. Her torso was raised and her feet pointed down. Both arms extended straight out, and from behind her, a shadowlike mass oozed out of nowhere. As I watched and wondered how to express what I was seeing, it was obvious that no matter what world this was, the same word applied. This object was a cross.

That… bastard… what sort of farce was he making this?

Haruhi was now being crucified on a cross of darkness.

She was unconscious, her head slumped over to one side, and her eyes were still closed as though she were asleep. The sense that she was suffering might well have been my imagination, but in any case this was not a situation she would’ve wished for.

To say nothing of how Kuyoh and Fujiwara were declaring their murderous intent.

They really were idiots. Presiding over such an obviously villainous plot was incompetent even in a third-rate manga from the last century. And if acting satisfied at the crucifixion of a girl is third-rate, then this idiot sneering at me was even worse than that. It was all so obvious that it was like some kind of slapstick gag. This is dumb. This is so dumb, Fujiwara. He didn’t have any talent as an actor. I understood all too well, now. Out of all the life-forms existing in this space-time, he was the lowest of the low. He was lower than algae.

But this absurd cliché did have an effect. Oh, it had an effect, all right.

“Dammit…!” I leaned bodily out of the open window and reached out with my hands. She was too far to reach, but I still wanted to grab Haruhi. Even if it meant embracing her in a hug, I had to pull her back into the clubroom. I wanted to slap her face and wake her up.

And more than anything else, I would never forgive Fujiwara and Kuyoh for what they had done to Haruhi. I wouldn’t let them think they could get away with this. I was going to kill them both, I swore.

As though having seen my hate-crazed eyes and correctly guessing my thoughts, Fujiwara started to mock me. “So, how do you like having the most precious person in your life being used as a pawn? No matter what you’ve thought up until now, Haruhi Suzumiya is the most important phenomenon in the universe to us. There isn’t a single other human with more value. No matter how you live the rest of your life, it’s worthless and meaningless. Haruhi Suzumiya’s power will determine everything from here on out. And if we transfer her will and consciousness into a different container, Haruhi Suzumiya herself will also become worthless.”

I was grinding my teeth so violently I chipped one of them. There was no way in hell I was letting this bastard get away with this.

“Wait!” Asahina shouted plaintively. “There’s no proof that that’s the real Haruhi Suzumiya. It could be an illusion! Kyon, it might be some kind of trick to force you into making a decision.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Koizumi decisively. “No trick would deceive me, since I am, in a sense, a tool of Suzumiya’s subconscious. Our sleeping beauty over there is not a clone nor an illusion. She’s the genuine article, 100-percent-pure Suzumiya. My—no, our—beloved brigade chief.”

That was the truth. Koizumi wouldn’t lie to me. There would be no point to a bluff now. So what could I do…

“—”

Kuyoh was silent. She seemed to be waiting for someone’s command.

“Ah… uhh… um…” Kyoko Tachibana seemed totally confused, as though she were completely unable to keep up with the rapidly developing situation.

“Looks like there isn’t going to be any negotiating,” Fujiwara muttered in a calm, darkly resolved voice. “I’m going to end Suzumiya’s life. Don’t worry, Sasaki will handle her remaining duties. For you in the past, nothing will change. You can just live out your full, happy lives all the way through to old age without Haruhi Suzumiya.”

Was that true? Was there nothing we could do?

In desperation I looked to Asahina the Elder. With that lovely teacher style of hers, the adult Asahina gently covered her eyes. I didn’t understand what the earlier exchange about brothers and sisters had meant. And I definitely didn’t know which one of them was telling the truth. But I felt as though I could understand Fujiwara’s goal. So did that mean Asahina the Elder’s aims were blocking it? Was that all?

Engulfed by a maelstrom of doubt, what brought me back around to the present was the clear, refreshing voice of my comrade.

“If you think you can do it, by all means please try.”

The counterattack I’d been hoping for came from an unexpected person. Koizumi stood in front of Fujiwara, blocking his way. It seemed as though he intended to object to the time traveler’s murderous intention, but what was it that kept his face so calm?

Did Koizumi have some kind of plan? There was no way I could be that calm, looking at Haruhi, about to fall three stories to her death. We didn’t have time to plan any tricks or set any traps, so ad-libbing seemed unlikely to work. Damn, damn, damn—it was so pathetic it made me want to cry.

If I lost my temper and flew into a rage here, all that would happen would be a mark on my permanent record showing that an idiotic high school boy had resorted to violence without actually accomplishing anything. If Sasaki were here, at least she could’ve managed her trademark smooth talk. If Nagato were in her normal mode, I wouldn’t have had anything to fear from Kuyoh.

The advantage was overwhelmingly with our opponents. Even if I could ignore the faltering, terrified Kyoko Tachibana, even the Data Overmind’s humanoid terminals Asakura and Kimidori didn’t know how to deal with Kuyoh. This utterly foreign alien had joined forces with Fujiwara, and turned the clubroom into a danger zone.

I stood there, teeth clenched, when someone pushed me from behind. “It’s always the prince’s role to save the princess when she’s imprisoned in thorns. Not just his role—his duty.” Koizumi shrugged. “Of course, I don’t have any idea about our captured princess up there. Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t. But Koizumi, I told him, I still had important business with Fujiwara that involved socking him right in the face.

“I’ll handle that.” A volleyball-sized sphere of red light appeared above the palm of Koizumi’s right hand. “I rather feel as though I’ve become the protagonist of an esper manga. I may not have this chance again, so I hope you’ll let me seize this one. This is my last chance to make my dream come true, you see,” he said happily, but I could tell he was well and truly angry.

Go right ahead, Koizumi. After all, if you didn’t exercise your physical abilities every so often, your body would get weak.

After patting me on the shoulder, Koizumi pushed me forward, escorting me to the courtyard-facing side of the room, which was illuminated by the madly shining sky.

Several meters of space separated the edge the windowsill from the place where Haruhi hung in the air. It wasn’t a distance I could bridge just by reaching out my arms. How was I going to pull her back in?

“Kuyoh!” Fujiwara’s scream grated against my ears. “Do it!”

In that instant, Haruhi began to slip free from the cross. With her head hanging down as she slumped over, she looked like a saint being freed from the bonds of crucifixion. The stone floor of the courtyard was directly under her, and headfirst, she began to fall.

“Haruhi!”

I didn’t think about anything. Not about consequences, memories, or any kind of duty or sense of righteousness. I didn’t need to. I just kicked off the window frame and jumped out into thin air, like I expected wings to sprout from my back. As though pushed by someone’s invisible lifting force, I caught Haruhi in my arms just as she fell. And then, naturally, pulled by gravity, we both fell. Headfirst.

Haruhi’s body was more delicate than I’d imagined. I’d never seriously embraced her like that before, so I’d never noticed.

But the sense of warmth, of softness, made me realize that this really was Haruhi. She was just a second-year high school student, in the bloom of her girlhood—just an ordinary girl.

This was the true form of sleeping beauty. Even if I died the very next moment, her name would live on, carved in history. The girl softly breathing in my arms was, beyond any doubt, Haruhi Suzumiya.

She was the real Haruhi. She wasn’t some illusion from Kuyoh, or a fake prepared in advance. To threaten me, Fujiwara was using the real Haruhi.

He really was serious. Fujiwara would really go that far. Was this what you wanted? You’d lay out your disturbing future, your desire not to lose Asahina, and you’d even go so far as to put Haruhi on your death list, just to bring the future you wanted to create into sight?

But all I could see was the form of the person right in front of me.

Koizumi, Asahina the Elder—I’m sorry. There’s nothing else in my eyes.

Haruhi Suzumiya.

Our brigade chief and the ruler of the clubroom. That arrogant, confident optimist. Happy to manipulate anyone or overcome anything, surging forward toward her goals like a bowling ball shot from a linear catapult. My only boss. She was all I could see.

Ah.

The ground was getting closer. Owing to her unconsciousness, Haruhi’s body was limp, and slightly feverish. It was just as Koizumi said. That delicate body with its curves right where you’d expect them, the surprisingly slender shoulders, the slight fragrance—I knew better than anyone else that this was Haruhi.

When humans fall from high places, they die. I didn’t have to guess at what my skull would look like after falling at this rate of gravitational acceleration and slamming headfirst into the stone pavement.

Had I been a little too hasty? At the very least I could’ve set up a mat on the ground, or strapped on a parachute—.

Of course, I didn’t have time for such introspection. The only thing I thought of was the faint notion of curling around Haruhi and putting myself between her and the ground to absorb some of the impact.

The sound of rushing air roared in my ears. I would be hitting the ground soon.

I closed my eyes. Tight.

I embraced Haruhi. As tightly and closely as I possibly could.

The distance of my suicidal free fall was short enough that there shouldn’t have been even enough time for the turn of a revolving lantern. Not wanting to see the fast-approaching ground, I’d shut my eyes, praying to Mother Earth that she would awaken to her duty to cushion our impact.

I prayed.

But.

Then.

The instant I resigned myself, the backs of my eyelids were illuminated with a blue glow.

“?!”

A hairsbreadth from impact, I felt the sensation of sinking into some kind of soft object.

I opened my eyes.

Haruhi and I were surrounded by blue light. I hastily looked around in every direction and saw that we were floating just a few centimeters above the courtyard’s stone floor. Somehow, this shining blue something had cushioned our fall.

When I looked up, it was like a vast wall that reached all the way up to the madly swirling sky.

“It’s—!”

But no, it wasn’t. It was a <Celestial>.

There was a <Celestial> standing in the courtyard—surrounded by a faintly glowing outline, whose arms could destroy any building, the lonely master of this gray space.

“It can’t be!” I heard Fujiwara’s distant voice. “How can that thing be…”

The <Celestial> had reached out with its great hand and caught Haruhi and me.

The dimly shining giant was taller than any of the school buildings. I would never forget I’d seen this terrible embodiment of Haruhi’s frustration rampaging through closed space.

Haruhi and I were side-by-side in the palm of its hand.

The <Celestial’s> intentions couldn’t have been clearer—it had meant to save us from falling to our deaths.

But why had the <Celestial> been able to appear here? Its creator, Haruhi, was unconscious, and moreover, this was a world where Haruhi’s and Sasaki’s closed spaces were being mixed together. And even supposing that it could appear, this giant that even Haruhi couldn’t control was now acting like her faithful servant and saving her—I just couldn’t see how it was connected to this particular situation.

From the soft, almost fluffy palm of the <Celestial> I looked up to the clubroom, just as an orange-colored explosion blew through the window. I guess Koizumi had finally lost his temper. I didn’t care about Fujiwara, but I hoped that Asahina the Elder and Kyoko Tachibana were safe.

“Nn…”

Haruhi stirred in my arms, and a small moan escaped from between her parted lips.

As though cooperating with her, the <Celestial> raised its other arm and made a fist. It then brought it down on the clubroom with a punch of tremendous force—

The same instant, I was assailed by a sensation of time compression. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

I looked up into the sky and saw a small figure standing on the roof of the clubroom’s building.

She was wearing a baggy uniform, and her permed-looking hair cut an unmistakable silhouette—Yasumi Watahashi.

New Brigade Member Number One, who’d vanished as soon as my two selves were reunified, now stood on the edge of the rail-less roof, looking down on me and Haruhi. In the dim, hazy light I couldn’t make out her face, but I was suddenly sure that she was smiling.

She executed a clumsy bow, then raised her head and faced forward.

Drawn by where she was looking, I also directed my gaze to the side of the courtyard opposite the clubroom—but that seemed to be the limit.

My field of vision distorted, twisting. But just before it did, I saw three figures on the roof of the opposite school building. One had short hair, one had long hair, and the third’s hair was in-between, and all of them were wearing North High uniforms…

So they’d come. I knew it. Kimidori, and Asakura, and—.

No longer confined to a sickbed, looking as quiet and keen as ever, it was Yuki Nagato. I couldn’t imagine that these three would have failed to notice the distortions in the axis of time. Positioned outside the world, the Data Overmind would know… just like in that endlessly repeating August.

There was no doubt that they had been observing everything, including me…

“…!”

My vision went suddenly dark, and I was disoriented by a crazy floating sensation. The dizzy feeling I’d gotten so sick of during all my time traveling had returned.

Just as I was about to black out entirely, Yasumi’s shadow waved at me. As a way of saying good-bye it was more than sufficient. Whether it was meant for me, or as a greeting to the three humanoid interfaces, I would probably never have a chance to ask. I just had that feeling…

But that was all right. However far we fell, we’d be together.

Darkness fell.

After a floating sensation, I felt free fall again. I put more strength into my arms, telling myself that Haruhi was the one thing I would never let go of.

From somewhere far in the distance, I thought I heard Asahina the Younger’s voice.

Whump.

“Ow!”

The shock came from my tailbone. Feeling pretty stupid for landing on my butt, I opened my eyes, then quickly closed them again owing to the brightness.

Having become used to the dimness of closed space, my irises couldn’t adjust immediately. And yet—where was I? Based on the nonvisual information available, my hand and rear end were touching something like grass, and my sense of hearing reported a bustling mix of several male and female voices.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes a sliver, and saw that I was definitely sitting on the corner of a wide lawn, and around me were what had to be male and female students dressed in street clothes. Some were groups walking around, and here and there were couples cuddling together on the grass.

“What? Where am I? Where did I get sent now?”

Across the lawn I saw a building that appeared to be a clock tower. Compared with North High, it was an absurdly modern structure. And the groups of students that were walking around seemed somehow more refined than high school students. This seemed as if it had to be a college somewhere. The breeze was warm. I wondered if it was spring…

My immediate impression of my surroundings was that they were very well-made. But, why? Why was I here?

Just as I was starting to get really worried—

“What’s wrong, Kyon?” The all-too-familiar voice of a girl was directed at me from above.

Still sprawled on the ground, I looked up.

“Haru…” I managed to say before becoming totally speechless. I can’t even remember if I rubbed my eyes or not.

There was Haruhi, looking somehow grown-up. Her hair was longer than I remember it being, and she wore a spring ensemble of soft, seasonally appropriate colors, perfectly matched to the cardigan over her shoulders. No, she couldn’t be this grown-up yet. The Haruhi I knew had only just started her second year of high school.

And yet the Haruhi before me was clearly several years past that. I mean, how should I put it? I can’t really say it right… but yes, she had clearly matured.

“What’re you doing? Hey…” This Haruhi smiled jokingly at me. It made me dizzy. “What do you think you’re doing, wearing that old uniform? Kyon… Wait—you seem kind of… young…?” she said, then turned around as though someone had called her.

“Huh?”

My vision started to dim again.

Someone was calling out to that Haruhi. Looking surprised, I heard her say “Huh? You’re over there—?” before turning back to me again. “Wha?”

I think she had an expression of shock on her face.

But my consciousness was rapidly fading. The figure of Haruhi standing on the lawn began to grow distant, as though it were being filmed by some kind of special camera move. I didn’t move, and neither did Haruhi—a distance merely opened up between us. Darkness began to close in around me. This was the door. The will of time was trying to return me to my original place.

The moment the walls of darkness closed completely, I could only see the shape of Haruhi’s mouth as she spoke.

—See you again, Kyon, her kind, beautiful smile said.

Again I was falling as though having lost my footing, floating such that I’d lost all sense of equilibrium, and had no idea which way was up or down.

Had that been a dream? Or an illusion? To be honest, I knew that I was suffering from time-sickness. During the events surrounding Tanabata, I traveled back and forth through time on multiple occasions, and my body had quite thoroughly learned the truth of the saying that one personal experience was worth hearing a hundred stories. I probably wouldn’t get used to it no matter how many times I did it, and in the process had learned that the semicircular canals in my ears were quite weak. But anyone would feel this way if they had to ride in a car with bad suspension along a winding mountain road. The inside of my stomach was already about to flip.

Just how long was this plunge into darkness going to last?

But it didn’t take very long before I reached the next transition. Just as I reached the end of my short fall, it felt as though I was carried by a gentle force that opposed gravity. I felt myself lean into a sensation of breaking, and then a strangely elastic object struck my body. At that, I opened my eyes.

“Nguh?!”

The truth was I opened my eyes both literally and figuratively. I still hadn’t shaken the unreal feeling of being inside some incoherent dream; I was completely awake, feeling the unmistakable sensation of waking up after a moderate amount of sleep. I could even remember the dream I had just had. Not that it mattered.

It took my highly intelligent brain about three seconds to grasp the situation.

“…? Where is this?”

I was in a dark room, on a bed. I could immediately tell that it was not my own. The surroundings had the unfamiliar scent of someone else’s home. It reminded me of the way my sister’s room smelled, but wasn’t quite the same. I was certain it wasn’t a room I’d seen or been in my entire life.

So where was it? Where had I been dropped?

“What… are you doing?” I heard a muffled voice from directly below me. It sounded unnaturally quiet, and there was more than a hint of challenge in it. It was a voice I’d certainly heard before—in fact, it was a voice I hear almost every day.

As slowly as possible, I looked down.

Haruhi’s face was directly in front of me. Despite the darkness, there was enough light coming in through the slightly open curtains that I could see upon her face an expression of shock unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Beyond that, I seemed to be down on all fours on Haruhi’s bed, looking down at her, where she lay faceup, pinned by the comforter that I was inadvertently holding down with my hands and legs. If an impartial jury had been present and witnessed this scene, they would’ve unanimously convicted me without a single hesitation. There wasn’t any space in this situation for a single speck of an excuse.

“… Is this…?”

I finally realized it. Somehow I’d neglected to ever visit Haruhi’s house, to say nothing of her room, which explained why this place was so unfamiliar. I probably couldn’t have noticed any sooner, but this was without a doubt Haruhi’s room. By process of elimination, that was the only possibly answer.

This was Haruhi’s room, and Haruhi’s bed. And it was the middle of the night. Haruhi was wearing pajamas, and looking up at me with eyes that were past astonishment.

“Kyon, just what do you think you’re—”

I’ll have you know, Miss Haruhi, that I’m the one who has no idea what’s going on here. No, seriously—I would never, ever have guessed that the destination of all that falling would have been Haruhi’s bed.

“Wait!” Haruhi said in a rising voice. “Just—close your eyes… and put the covers over your head!”

She slowly sat up and elbowed me aside, and my vision was soon blocked by the covers going over my head. I heard rustling.

I took the chance to peer through a gap in the covers and look around at the room’s furnishings. No, this wasn’t anything perverted. There was just something I needed to make sure of.

What I was looking for was on Haruhi’s bedside table.

It was something you’ll find in almost anyone’s bedroom—a digital alarm clock. Haruhi didn’t live in the Edo era, so I assumed she wouldn’t have a rooster next to her bed.

Fortunately, Haruhi was considerate enough to have a model that displayed the day and month in addition to the time, which indicated that the sun would soon be peeking out from under the horizon.

And the day happened to be a day in May.

So… what did that mean? The day I’d fallen into the glowing blue hand of a <Celestial> was an evening in the middle of April, so assuming Haruhi’s clock wasn’t completely out of whack, then—crap—this was nearly a month in the future from that day.

I’ve had all sorts of experience with leaping into the past and then back to my own present, but this would be the first time I’d jumped into the future. Who’d forced me ahead in time? Asahina the Elder? Or was this a previously unknown ability the <Celestial> had?

Haruhi was still rummaging around. Given the sound of rustling cloth, I assumed she was changing, but my interest was elsewhere.

Hanging from Haruhi’s wall was a simply designed calendar. The black numeral indicated today, this day, the day on which the sun was about to dawn, had been plainly circled with a red magic marker. The edge of the circle had been embellished with little flower petals, like a mark of praise from a teacher on a kindergarten student’s drawing.

I knew perfectly well what today was the anniversary of.

After all, I’d done something similar for a day on my calendar’s April page.

So she’d remembered. Well, I remembered, so I guess it’s not surprising. One year ago today was a day that was as important to us as our school entrance ceremony.

This day was—.

Just then, I heard the sound of a small bump against the window.

Both Haruhi and I straightened at the sound. Haruhi had finished changing into regular clothes, so she didn’t complain when I pulled the covers off of my head. She seemed more interested in whoever was making the noise outside of the window, and walked quickly over to it. I went and stood beside her.

It was here where I learned that Haruhi lived in a normal house and had a room on the second floor. I found it deeply mysterious that I didn’t know this already.

When she pulled back the curtains and looked down, three figures were illuminated by the streetlight in front of the house.

There wasn’t a single doubt about their identities. It was Asahina the Younger, Koizumi, and Nagato.

Seeing our response, Koizumi raised a tired hand, while Asahina put both hands on her chest. Nagato simply stood there stock-still as usual. I felt a deep sense of relief.

Haruhi quietly opened the window. Outside it was silent, not unlike the closed space I’d been in just a short while earlier. This was probably a residential area where the loudest noise they got was the paperboy making his rounds.

We hadn’t coordinated anything ahead of time, but Haruhi and I still wound up holding our breath together, as Koizumi gave us a light wave.

I had just noticed that he seemed to be holding some kind of small package in his other hand when our lieutenant brigade chief made a wind-up motion and tossed the item toward us. The toss traced a lazy parabola—was that Nagato’s doing?—before landing perfectly in my hands. Strike!

The neatly wrapped box had a card attached to it with a ribbon. Despite the low light, I was able to easily read the writing on the card.

In honor of the first anniversary of the founding of the SOS Brigade. From the brigade members to Her Excellency the brigade chief, with a year’s worth of our deepest thanks.

The irregularity of the handwriting made it seem as if each brigade member had written one of the phrases. My handwriting was among them, though I had no recollection of putting it there.

… That’s right. This date, this very day, marked exactly one year since Haruhi had declared the foundation of the SOS Brigade. Having received her divine inspiration, she’d slammed the back of my head into her desk, and as soon as our lunch break arrived, dashed up the stairs and made straight for the literature club room, then after school, declared she was taking it over, and the very next day, captured poor Asahina.

—From now on, this room is our clubroom!

—The SOS Brigade! Saving the world by Overloading it with fun, Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade!

That was the moment our mysterious club members came together and established a base from which we would spread trouble throughout North High.

Isn’t that right, Koizumi, Nagato, Asahina?

That’s the reason I’m here, is it not?

“Haruhi.”

I held the present and turned my body to face Haruhi.

“Wh… what?” She acted as if she didn’t know, but I could tell she understood what was going on. She glanced back and forth between looking at my face and the box, seeming like a treasure hunter’s sidekick who knew she was about to receive a great treasure but didn’t know what to do with it.

Times like this, you just gotta approach things head-on. I handed her the treasure box with card attached. “Thank you for your hard work as our brigade chief. I hope you’ll favor us moving forward.”

“Idiot,” she said, but still politely took the box. After scanning the card, she closed her eyes and held the box tightly close. Somehow it felt like a sentimental breeze blew by, and then—

“Kyon, how did you get in my room?”

Ah… well, it sure as heck wasn’t through the front door. “I climbed up the drainpipe and came in through the window. You’ve gotta be more careful with your locks. I was lucky your lock was tired of being closed.”

I have to admit I was pretty impressed with myself for being able to spout such a pack of lies on demand.

“Isn’t that kinda overdoing things? Someone could’ve reported you while you were climbing up.” Haruhi’s expression was somewhere between laughter and tears, but then she suddenly looked down at my feet. “And why are you wearing your school slippers? Take those things off this second—you’re gonna get my floor all dirty.”

I’d totally forgotten about that. Up until just a moment ago I had been at North High—and so had she. But unfortunately it looked as if I was the only victim of this particular time slip.

Haruhi watched me take my shoes off, then, going back over to the window and gazing down at the three who were still standing there in the driveway, she took a deep breath.

“If you were gonna do a surprise event, you could’ve picked a better time. I was sort of expecting it, but I have to admit I didn’t think it would be this late at night.”

“It wouldn’t have been a surprise otherwise, would it? This is the only way we could surprise you,” I said. My pretentious ad-libbing was pretty persuasive, I gotta say, thanks to all the crazy stuff Haruhi had put me through. It would’ve been nice if we didn’t have to go to such lengths to get the drop on her.

Haruhi was still looking down, smiling with tears in her eyes. She obviously didn’t care whether or not the window had actually been locked. The point was that I was there.

“Kyon”—Haruhi drew close to my face and whispered in my ear—“I’ll show you to the front door, so follow me and try not to make any noise.” Her breath tickled as she spoke, but I managed to deal with it.

Haruhi descended the steps on tiptoe so as not to alert the household, and with the skill of a veteran safecracker, opened her front door.

Now I was finally able to meet up with the brigade members waiting outside. Since it was a residential area in the wee hours, everyone was silent. But I could read their faces. Although I still didn’t understand what happened, I could tell that everything had finally worked out well.

Nagato had brought with her my favorite pair of sneakers, which she held out to me. This was the usual Nagato. Not stricken with fever, this was her unchanging, ever-reading face, and it had no need for emotional expression.

Asahina—the Younger, of course—peered worriedly at me and Haruhi. I gave her a thumbs-up, and her sigh of relief quickly became a smile.

With all the friendly openness of someone who’s just returned from an all-night convenience store, Koizumi spoke. “My apologies for coming so late at night, Suzumiya, but there was someone here who just had to express their deep feelings, you see.”

Why did he look at me as he said that?

Well, I knew. I faced Haruhi and spoke in my most composed tone of voice. “We had to figure out how to surprise you. If we didn’t strike while you were asleep, we couldn’t have done it.”

But whether Haruhi was listening to me or not, she looked at Asahina and the rest in turn. “Well… thank you.”

She held her present close and smiled a smile that would’ve outshone the full moon. Normally her grin blazed like a vast star, but this was like a peaceful moon, and it made me kind of… how can I say it? No, I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was gaze back at her.

Somewhere a crow cawed. Damn dark bird. I didn’t remember ordering any sound effects.

As though taking that as her cue, Haruhi looked up from her package. “It’s pretty late. Let’s meet up later in the clubroom—also, what’s inside?”

“I hope that you’ll look forward to opening it and finding out. Incidentally, the person who chose it is your bedroom intruder here,” said Koizumi. “He even wrapped it for you. He was rather insistent about doing it himself, so the rest of us merely acted as observers. Perhaps we should have just left everything to him.”

I finally managed to shut Koizumi up by stepping on his foot.

Still, apparently my past self had been the one to pick out the present’s contents. I could understand the reasoning.

Haruhi looked back, then looked back again as she returned to her front door. “Take care on your way home. Koizumi and Kyon, you better make sure Yuki and Mikuru get home safe, got that? That’s an order from your brigade chief.”

She left us with those words, spoken at a surprisingly reasonable volume, then went back inside her house. She really was being considerate of both her parents and neighbors. I suppose she does have a cuteness to her.

After we left Haruhi, the three other brigade members and I walked along the deserted night street.

I knew that it was the middle of May. I also knew that from my perspective, being summoned to the clubroom for a showdown with Fujiwara and Kuyoh, and my soft landing with Haruhi in the palm of a <Celestial>, were things that had happened just a short while ago, but I had now jumped nearly a month ahead—but given that I’d previously jumped through time amounting to years, this wasn’t that much of a surprise to me, and just felt like a novel discovery.

In other words, for me this was the world of the future, and as such was unexplored territory, I said.

“Indeed it is.” Koizumi’s unconcerned tone as he spoke was frustrating. Maybe it was because he was in such high spirits.

“Which means I’m going to have to do another time jump.”

“Yes. It will be rather inconvenient if you don’t.”

“Um, er—” Asahina raised her hand slightly. And as befit the time travel expert (apprentice) that she was, she stumblingly explained the situation to me.

And according to her, right after I was saved by the <Celestial>, I jumped ahead in the future—that would be now.

Which meant that I had to go back in time once more, to a month ago. Asahina would send me herself, very shortly.

I looked to Nagato. She looked back at me with the eyes of a nutcracker doll. I couldn’t sense so much as a particle of the weakness that she’d suffered from back when Haruhi was nursing her.

“Can’t I just sleep in a time-freeze until the right moment comes?”

“No,” answered Nagato instantly. “That is not a suitable solution for the problem.”

What did that mean? I asked Koizumi.

“Actually, there’s another you that exists in this time. The one who returned from this time to a month ago.”

I seem to have been fusing with other versions of myself quite a bit these days, I said.

“That was a different case. There, your original self had split into two versions, but in the case of time travel, there really is only one of you. So if you don’t return, your double existence here remains unresolved.”

Asahina looked up at me from one side. “And it would go against the fixed event, so… we really need you to go back. From our perspective, you returning to the past is part of reality.”

So that was how it is. The proof that I did return to my proper time was in the fact that there was another me in this time. The “me” that returns to the past here becomes the other “me” that now exists here. Anyway, it was just a month. Compared with three years, that was hardly anything.

“We wanted to bring the you that exists in this time period along too, but you insisted that you really didn’t want to meet yourself. So just the three of us came.”

That’s certainly what I would’ve done.

“Incidentally, I was told to keep the nature of Suzumiya’s present a secret. Please give the matter some thought once you return to your proper time,” Koizumi said mischievously. “And please don’t forget to tell the us of next month about today. Although I’m sure you’ll remember.”

“…”

I was at least relieved to see that Nagato had returned to her normal silent, expressionless self.

“My past self will explain everything to you. Actually, I already have.”

“Yeah, I’ll ask you right away. Is the clubroom all right for that?”

“No, we’ll actually be meeting in a different location. As for where—well, I suppose I’ll leave that to you. You needn’t overthink the matter.”

I looked to Nagato.

“…”

The ever-silent girl said nothing. Back in the courtyard, the last thing I saw had been those three figures on the roof. There was no question that one of them had been Nagato. And Koizumi had said that the α-route Nagato hadn’t suffered any changes. Far from it, he’d even mentioned something about Yasumi summoning her to go.

Did you know everything, Nagato? What Yasumi was, and the reason the <Celestial> appeared back there…

But Nagato silently turned her back to me, walking off with Koizumi, who gave me a wave before leaving.

I might as well believe Koizumi. According to him, he’d already given me an explanation. To the me of a month ago, that is.

I turned to Asahina, the other person that had been left behind. “Shall we go?”

“Yes!”

Asahina seemed pleased that there was something useful for her to do. And she probably was. After following orders she didn’t understand from her superiors for so long, she was trying to take the initiative to use time travel on her own.

But first.

“Asahina.”

“What is it?”

“Do you have a brother, Asahina? Particularly a younger brother—I’d like to know.”

Asahina giggled and put a finger to her lips, winking a perfect wink. “Information about my family is top-level classified information.”

I’ll just bet.

Having experienced it several times, I was finally starting to get used to time travel, and the weightless, dizzying feeling soon passed. Maybe that was because a time span of one month was less than three years, so the time travel involved was shorter.

In any case, when I opened my eyes next, I was on my own bed, in my own room.

Perhaps startled by my sudden appearance, Shamisen, who had been curled up napping on my pillow, jumped to his feet and stumbled off the bed, then glared at me, his tail puffed up. I gave the room a quick look. Unsurprisingly, Asahina was nowhere to be seen.

First I checked the time.

On a day in early April, a Friday, eight PM, I had returned to my room.

Just two hours earlier, in the literature club room, I’d been involved in a desperate struggle for the fate of the world, or the future, and if I were to seriously tell anyone about it, the only person who would believe me outside of the people that had been there was probably Sasaki. Not that it was a story I particularly wanted to broadcast.

I stretched a big stretch, and murmured a few words to celebrate my return to normal life.

“Guess I’ll take a bath and go to bed.”

I decided to take one day out of the weekend to clear my head.