CHAPTER ONE

It happened one evening, a few days after Setsubun.

When I got to the clubroom and opened the door, all that greeted me was the chilly air and an empty room. Asahina wasn’t there to greet me, nor was Nagato sitting silently at the corner of the table—and Haruhi was nowhere to be seen. Today was her day to talk to the guidance counselor, so right about now she was in the office with Mr. Okabe, freaking him out with her crazy ambitions. If someone had asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, I had the feeling she would’ve said something crazy like “dictator” or “galactic president” with a completely straight face. And lest that actually happen, I fervently hoped that Mr. Okabe would put forth the effort to gently guide her onto a more reasonable path. Her personality was such that more forceful persuasion would cause her to be even less flexible than elements in the chromium group.

I put my bag on the table and turned on the electric space heater to warm up the chilly, lonely room. It took a while for the ancient heater to start radiating heat.

The only other sources of warmth would’ve been the steam coming off Asahina’s kettle and the hot tea she brewed with it. I thought about how much I wanted to have some as I grabbed the nearest folding chair, when—

Clunk.

“What was that?”

It had come from the corner of the room. I reflexively looked in the direction of the sound, but the only thing there was the same tall steel object with which every classroom was furnished—namely, a broom closet. So far as I could trust my ears, the sound had come from within it.

I’d just convinced myself that it had just been the random shifting of a mop or broom, when—

Clunk.

The noise was softer this time.

“Cut it out,” I murmured to myself.

Have you ever felt anything like this? Say your family’s out, and you come home to an empty house, and even though you should be the only one there, you can’t help feeling that you’re not alone. You feel like there’s some kind of movement behind the curtains, like someone is hiding there, and you want to pull them back to check, but you’re scared of what you might find if you actually do, so you leave them alone—and it almost always turns out to be your imagination.

I was sure this was my imagination too. If it had happened when I was home alone instead of in the clubroom, I probably would’ve been too freaked out to open the door, but I was at school, and the sun hadn’t even gone down yet. There was hardly anything to be nervous about.

I casually walked over to the broom closet, and with no particular expectations, I opened the door—and was immediately struck dumb.

“… Huh?”

Brooms, mops, and dustpans weren’t the only things in the closet. I was so surprised that the shock forced itself out of my mouth, becoming a question. “… What the hell are you doing in there?”

The person to whom the obvious question was directed answered.

“Oh… Kyon.” It was Asahina. An expression of relief flickered across her face. “So you waited for me? Oh, thank goodness. I was starting to worry about what I was going to do, but now I can relax. So, um… what should I do?”

“Wha?”

“Huh?” She looked up at me, blinking in surprise. “Umm… This is the right time, today, right? I’m certain you said this was the place…”

As the girl who’d apparently happily shut herself in a janitorial closet looked up at me uncertainly, a terrible premonition welled up within me, like smoke pouring from a factory smokestack in a growth economy.

“Asahina…”

What was going on here? Was she playing hide-and-seek in the broom closet? Surely not. Couldn’t be.

The smoke of unease was beginning to well up in my chest, when—

Knock knock.

There came a knock on the clubroom door; both Asahina and I looked in its direction, startled. Just as I was about to open my mouth to ask a question—

“Oh—wait—no, don’t—!”

Asahina grabbed my uniform’s necktie, and I was pulled forward. She drew me farther into the broom closet, then reached out her hand and closed the steel door behind me.

What the hell was going on? What was all of this?

“Shhh, Kyon—be quiet. Don’t make a sound.”

Thanks to a sliver of light, I could just barely make out Asahina putting her index finger to her lips. Even if she hadn’t said anything, I would’ve been speechless. I mean—just thinking about it.

Usually a person wouldn’t be able to cram themselves into a broom closet. Even one occupant would exceed its capacity—but now there were two people inside, and not just any two people either. It was Asahina and me. Asahina, whose curves were generous enough to catch even Haruhi’s eye. Obviously, given the circumstances, we wouldn’t be able to avoid being pressed together, so pressed together we were. Even through the school uniform I could feel something soft and warm against the lower part of my chest.

Just as I was becoming lost in the sensation, I heard the sound of the clubroom door opening. Somehow, I didn’t care. Asahina clung to me like someone trying to keep warm in a frigid mountain shack, holding her breath. I didn’t know why, but she was. How was such happiness even possible?

Terrible premonition, my ass. The black smoke in my chest was transforming to crystal-clear ozone, beckoning me to a soothing paradise… No, words are unnecessary. I just wanted the moment to last forever.

But my intoxication was forcibly interrupted by the voice of the person who’d just entered the room.

“Huh? Nobody’s here… but the heater’s on. Oh, that’s Kyon’s bag. Maybe he went to the bathroom.”

I looked down at Asahina, who still gripped my necktie. She looked up at me.

Next, I craned my neck around in an effort to look behind me. The sole source of light in the closet was a thin slit in its door. While humans cannot rotate their heads 180 degrees, I was about to catch a glimpse of the room out of the corner of my eye.

“…!” I was too shocked to voice my surprise.

There was Asahina.

Yes, it was Asahina who warmed her hands in front of the heater, humming to herself before she moved out of my line of sight, then reappeared having taken her maid outfit off its hanger. She then smoothly removed her school uniform’s ribbon, hanging it neatly over the back of a folding chair, then undoing the buttons on her blouse as she began to remove it.

“…!” I continued with another stunned ellipsis.

Asahina laid her newly doffed top on the chair as well, then put her hands to the waist of her skirt—just as other hands touched my face.

“…!”

Holding my face between her two hands, this Asahina forced my head to turn back around and face her. Even in the dark of the closet, I could tell she was blushing furiously. Her lips moved.

“D-o-n-’t l-o-o-k.”

I didn’t have to do any lip-reading to know what she was trying to say, and realizing too late that I had already seen some untoward things, I hurriedly shut my mouth and reassessed the situation.

There were two Asahinas.

Now wait just a minute. If one of them had been Asahina the Elder, that much I could’ve understood. That sort of thing had happened several times, so her appearing again would hardly have been surprising.

But this was different. A perfectly matched set of identical Asahinas was now separated by a single flimsy steel door—one with her body pressed up against my own, and the other smack in the middle of changing into her maid uniform.

Both of them were the real Asahina. When it came to the ability to read Nagato’s expressions or judge Asahina’s authenticity, I prided myself on having a higher level of skill than anyone else. And if that skill could be trusted, then both of these girls were the genuine article. And two of the same person existing in the same space had to mean—

—time travel.

If I had to guess, it was probably the Asahina squeezed in the broom closet with me who was from a different time, one not far removed from the current time. The two of them were just too similar. Even identical twins would’ve been more different from each other.

But I was only able to consider it for a brief moment. Obviously, instinct precedes rational thought in such situations.

I mean, here in the closet Asahina was clinging to me, her eyes squeezed shut, and out there the sound Asahina’s clothing made as she removed it was stimulating my imagination, and it was only a matter of time before my mind’s defenses were completely overrun. Just as in the summer siege of Osaka Castle after the death of the great general Yukimura Sanada, there was nothing that could be done. It was just as impossible to tell me not to have any reaction in the face of this two-front psychological assault.

I felt lightheaded, as though some strange drug were working its way though my brain. Somebody, do something!

At this rate I was either going to wind up embracing Asahina the Nearer with all my might or jump out of the closet and scare to death the Asahina in the room mid–costume change.

The sound of the clubroom door opening again brought me back to myself.

“…”

Whoever it was seemed to be standing there without saying anything. The door didn’t close.

“Oh, Nagato,” I heard Asahina say in her clear voice. “Wait just a moment, and I’ll put the tea on.”

I craned my neck around again.

Through the door’s slit I only caught the hem of her maid outfit’s skirt as it whirled around. I was left to imagine the now-changed Asahina quickly lighting the portable burner.

“…”

I didn’t hear any more sound from Nagato. While she’s certainly capable of moving quietly, the door certainly cannot close without making noise, so I inferred that she was still standing at the room’s entrance.

“Um… is something the matter?” came Asahina’s uncertain voice. Again my imagination: Nagato held her bag in one hand, with the other holding the doorknob as she stared, I was certain, at the broom closet.

“…”

“Er—”

“We need to talk.” Nagato’s voice.

“Huh?” Asahina sounded surprised.

“Come with me.”

“Wha—?” said Asahina, her surprise growing. “G-go where? I… wha…?”

“Anywhere, as long as it is not this room.”

“B-but, what do you want to talk about…? Why can’t we do it here?”

“We cannot speak here,” said Nagato shortly.

“And… you really want to talk to me? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Wha—? Wait, Nagato, don’t—you don’t have to drag me like that—!”

There were no further words. I heard Asahina’s tottering footsteps, followed by the sound of the door closing. The two girls disappeared down the hallway beyond the door.

Thanks, Nagato.

I clattered out of the broom closet, its door slamming open; Asahina tumbled after me.

“Fwaa—!” On her knees, Asahina cried out in a voice that could’ve been either relief or total fatigue. “Gosh, what a shock!”

I doubted she was more shocked than I was. “Asahina,” I said. “Just what is going on here? When did you come from?”

Asahina lifted her head up from its lowered position to look at me, blinking as she replied. “Huh? You don’t know, Kyon?”

Know what, I wondered. Just what was it that I was supposed to know?

“I mean”—Asahina continued, her expression like a passenger aboard a sinking ocean liner who’d just gotten to a lifeboat only to discover that it had a hole in it—“you were the one who told me to go to this time, weren’t you?”

Now wait just a minute.

I racked my brain. I had said something like that. Definitely. It was on January second, when I’d needed to return to December eighteenth the previous year. We’d gone back, then returned to our time.

But that had wrapped things up, hadn’t it? At the very least, I had no memory of telling Asahina anything about a jump into the future. I hadn’t even considered the notion.

Which meant…

The future. This Asahina had come from the future.

“When did you come from?”

“Uh…” Asahina went blank for a moment, then looked down and checked her wristwatch. “Um… A week and a day, so… four fifteen PM, eight days from now.”

“For what reason?”

“I don’t know.”

She’d just up and admitted it.

“I really don’t know,” she continued. “I just did what you told me to do. And I want to ask you something: why are your requests always so quickly approved?”

Asahina pouted, looking a bit like Haruhi. It was cute, but this was no time to be thinking about things like that. I purposefully turned toward the clubroom door. “I told you to do this? The me of eight days from now did?”

“Yes. You seemed kind of nervous, and you told me that if I went, I’d understand why. And you said to say ‘Hi’ to the you of the past.”

What the hell had the eight-days-later-me been thinking?

I struggled to understand. What had he sent Asahina into the past to do? “Say ‘Hi’ to me?” That didn’t tell me anything.

No, wait—something else was strange. This Asahina said she’d come from eight days in the future. Meanwhile, the Asahina who was wearing her maid outfit—the Asahina of this time—had been dragged away by Nagato.

So… what? There were two Asahinas. One was here in the clubroom. Nagato had taken the other one somewhere else in the school and hopefully wasn’t giving her too hard of a time.

“She took me to the emergency stairs and said all kinds of strange things,” said Asahina, cocking her head to one side. “Like how to use number theory to prove the existence of God, asking me how to conceptually refute that… or something. Nagato did all the talking, and I didn’t understand a thing. What was that all about? Oh—” There Asahina cut herself off. “I see.”

Just as Asahina seemed to figure things out, the Color Timer in my head began to flash an alarmed shade of red. At this rate, we were headed for big trouble.

As I silently prayed for Nagato’s crazy-talk to drag on, I said, “Asahina, you didn’t meet your future self anytime in the past week, right?”

“Er, no…” She shook her head meekly, looking flustered. In that case, we’d have to hurry.

I couldn’t let this Asahina meet her counterpart.

Nagato had realized this. She’d sensed Asahina and me in the broom closet and had taken steps to buy us some time. The reason she’d dragged maid-Asahina out of the clubroom was to give this Asahina and me a chance to escape.

Haruhi and Koizumi would be here before long. SOS Brigade members were like salmon returning to spawn—they always came back to the same place. I should know; I was the same way. And if Haruhi were to see the fissioned Asahinas, it wasn’t hard for me to guess how likely it was that she’d buy the explanation that they were twins.

If I didn’t get Asahina out of here and fast, I had the feeling things could turn ugly very soon.

“Asahina, let’s go.”

I grabbed my own bag, opened the door slightly, and checked the hallway. Nobody was there. I beckoned Asahina to come over, which she did, looking tremulously out into the hallway. The countdown had already begun. There were two conditions. One: not letting the two versions of Asahina meet each other, and two: not letting Haruhi witness two Asahinas in one place. I thought about putting her in some kind of disguise, but a glance at the hanger rack in the clubroom revealed nothing but costumes that would’ve stuck out, so I gave up on that idea. Fortunately this Asahina was wearing her school uniform. Like the saying goes: the best way to hide in a forest is to be a leaf.

I took Asahina’s arm and hurried out of the room.

“You’re sure you came from eight days in the future, right?” I asked as we strolled briskly along.

“Yes, because you told me to go back eight days, to three forty-five PM.”

Asahina’s stride was longer than usual as we descended the steps two at a time. I prayed that Mr. Okabe’s lecturing of Haruhi would run long.

“So you know what’s going to happen for the next week?”

We reached the bottom floor, and I hesitated for a moment before picking a route that took us across the courtyard. If we had taken the covered pathways back to the main school building, there was the possibility of a direct encounter with Haruhi, and this path would get us to the shoe lockers more quickly.

Breathing a bit heavily, Asahina answered: “I guess so…”

“So was there some incident that made you have to travel into the past?”

“No, it wasn’t anything I could think of. You just dragged me over to that broom closet and pushed me in.”

So I’d pushed her in and ordered her to go to this time, today. That was strange, even for me. What the hell had I been thinking? I should’ve come with her. I would’ve saved myself the trouble of figuring all this out.

We’d just made it to the shoe lockers without meeting anyone we knew when I suddenly stopped short.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

We obviously had to get away from the school, but I had no idea where to hide Asahina after that.

So what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t very well do nothing and just have her return to eight days in the future, could I—? I asked.

“You can’t,” said Asahina, her upturned gaze sad. “I thought the same thing and asked about it, but they said no. The time when I’m allowed to go back is also classified, and I don’t know it myself.”

Which meant that this Asahina from eight days in the future had something she had to do today, or tomorrow, or soon. I’d just assume that much.

So?

So the number one thing I wanted to know was what that was. Why had my eight-days-later self sent her back without so much as a single note?

As I hurled curses at my future self, Asahina trotted over to the second-year students’ shoe lockers, and just as I was changing from my school slippers into my sneakers—

“Asahina!” I hurriedly looked around for the time traveler’s form. She was reaching up to her own shoe locker, which was located on a high row.

“Yes?” she replied, looking over her shoulder as she reached up. “What is it?”

I couldn’t believe she was asking me that. “Those shoes belong to your past self! The one in this time!”

“Ah—r-right…” she said, closing the door to the locker. “If I put these on, then my other self would have a hard time getting home. And I don’t remember my shoes going missing, so…”

That wasn’t all. She would’ve put her own school shoes back in the locker, and then what would’ve happened? The other Asahina would come back, open the locker, and find shoes precisely identical to the ones she was already wearing already inside.

“R-right,” said Asahina, flustered. “But, um, how am I going to get home?”

She’d just have to wear her school slippers, I thought. It might be a little embarrassing, but there was no other way. She couldn’t very well borrow another student’s shoes. And at the moment, I was more worried about where she was going to go home, rather than how.

I returned to my own shoe locker, opening it as my heart banged away in my chest.

And there, nostalgically enough, I found a message from the future.

“… Good job, Asahina. You’re always prepared.”

There atop my dirty, worn-out sneakers sat a fancy little envelope.

A cold wind stabbed at Asahina and me as we walked down the street, away from the school.

There was a scattering of other students from North High around, and I wondered if the feeling I had that they were all glancing at Asahina’s strange state—carrying no school bag and wearing her school slippers—was just my imagination.

Asahina was to my right, her chestnut-brown hair swaying softly. Her expression was far from soft, though—it was as dark as the clouds before a snowstorm.

And there was no doubt my own face was hardly untroubled. After all, I’d been forced to flee the clubroom, and my skipping club activities (actually, it was a brigade, so brigade activities) without notice would put the Chief in a bad mood, and unless I thought of a funny enough excuse or a good enough reason, I’d become fodder for one of her special punishments.

Nevertheless, leaving Asahina alone was risky in several ways. Seeing her wander aimlessly under the freezing night sky would make anyone want to help her. But seeing as how there was no guarantee that such helpers would be persons of good repute, I would have to do it myself.

“I’m sorry,” she said in an adorably sad voice. “Causing you trouble again, I—”

“No, not at all,” I answered quickly before she could finish. “I’m the one who sent you here in the first place, right? Future me’s the one at fault here.”

He and Asahina the Elder both. For being our future selves, they sure weren’t very nice to us. Did people from the future just hate the past, or what?

I grabbed the envelope I’d shoved into my pocket.

On the note, which had no indication of recipient or sender, there was simply written: Please take care of the Mikuru Asahina beside you.

That was all. I’d seen the careful handwriting before. The previous spring, I’d visited the clubroom during lunch in response to a similar missive, where I met the curvaceous form of Asahina the Elder before she told me where her mole was, in addition to more important hints. She was definitely the sender.

But still—even if I was supposed to “take care” of this Asahina, what did that mean? What could I do? Hadn’t Asahina the Elder told me I could even kiss her, if I wanted to?

Incidentally, I’d already shown the letter to the Asahina who was right here. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. She could understand what “Please take care of Mikuru Asahina” meant. If this message had been meant for my eyes only, that part would’ve said “me” instead of “Mikuru Asahina.”

“What could this mean…?” murmured Asahina, as she held the letter, staring intently at it. She seemed not to realize that she was the one who would end up writing it.

She would probably gradually come to that realization, though. During the second visit to December eighteenth, she’d noticed a fourth person, someone besides me, Nagato, and Asakura. She’d been put immediately to sleep, but because she’d been put to sleep, she must have sensed the other woman’s presence.

And the previous month, when I’d saved that kid in glasses from being hit by a minivan near Haruhi’s house, and Asahina had been so depressed that I’d clumsily tried to cheer her up—surely she’d gotten some information from me then. I didn’t know how much she’d figured out by now, but Koizumi was right: the members of the SOS Brigade were gradually changing.

According to Koizumi, the rate at which Haruhi created closed space was decreasing.

Also according to Koizumi, Nagato’s alienness was lessening.

And Koizumi himself, he’d changed a bit too. Isn’t that right, Mister Lieutenant Brigade Chief?

From what I could tell, although it was gradual, Haruhi was starting to engage with the people around her more. She’d been a substitute vocalist during the school festival, and when you compared activities like her game battle against the computer club and the winter training camp with her isolated state at the beginning of the year, she was like a different person now, smiling, happy, and able to reach mutual understandings with complete strangers.

—If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers, come join me!

—We’re going to search for aliens, time travelers, and espers, and have fun with them!

It was like she knew it had come true.

I wanted to think that all of these things were signs of her growth as a person.

As to my own growth, I had no idea.

A half hour later, it was into my own home that I wound up escorting Asahina.

“Oh, I see!” she said as she entered, taking off her shoes. “This is why you weren’t in the clubroom today.”

Her carefree voice had an admiring tone.

Since I couldn’t very well let her go back to her own home, and in lieu of any better options, I’d asked if there were any other people from her era that she could possibly stay with.

“There might well be, but I haven’t been informed of them,” she told me, her face looking like a greyhound’s right after a grueling dog race.

I’d had no choice but to invite her over. Asahina’s sorrow was deep, and the situation was completely mystifying. I had no idea what was going to happen, and I didn’t really want to know. And then, my sister, who had nothing to do with our current troubles, jumped out at Asahina.

“Hey, it’s Mikuru!”

My sister had been trying to drag Shamisen the cat out from under my bed, but no sooner did we open the door to my room than she slammed into Asahina, causing the beautiful object of every male North High student’s desire to stumble backward.

“S-sorry to disturb you!”

“Hey, wait—it’s just Kyon and Mikuru? Where’s Haruhi?”

My little sister looked up at Asahina with shining eyes before I grabbed the eleven-year-old fifth grader by her collar.

“Haruhi’s still at school. And I told you not to go into my room uninvited.”

I knew it was pointless no matter how many times I told her. Which meant finding hiding places for things I didn’t want found was a huge pain.

“But Shami wouldn’t come out!” My sister clung to Asahina’s skirt, giggling. “Where’s Yuki? And Koizumi? And Tsuruya? Aren’t they coming too?”

She tended to call everybody by the names she heard other people call them, which was obviously why she’d started calling me “Kyon.” An elementary school kid with no concept of respect for her elders—that was my little sister. All I wanted was for somebody to call me “big brother” once in a while. Was that so much to ask?

“Oh! Is this a date? Hey—”

I kicked her out of my room and shut the door before she got any further.

“Well then,” I said, sitting down and facing Asahina. “Can you give me an idea of what happens this week?”

“Hmm.” Asahina puzzled over it. “Eight days ago… which would be today, I went back to the clubroom and noticed that the heater was on, even though nobody was in the room.”

I’d seen that happen.

“And then when I was changing, Nagato came in, and then she took me over to the bottom of the emergency stairs.”

I’d seen the first half of that.

“When I came back to the clubroom, your bag was gone, and Koizumi was there.”

Which meant we’d escaped in the nick of time.

“About half an hour later, Suzumiya came.”

Her guidance counseling must have run long. I needn’t have worried about running into her, apparently.

“She seemed kind of angry.”

Maybe she’d gotten into some kind of argument during counseling. There weren’t exactly application forms for the kind of careers she probably had in mind. And if there were, I wanted one too.

“She just glared out the window with a scary look on her face and drank three cups of tea in a—oh!”

Asahina’s eyes went wide, as though she’d caught a glimpse of a ghost in the corner of the room.

“Suzumiya realized you weren’t there and…”

Realized?

“… And she called you—”

The instant Asahina said those words, my phone rang.

Crap.

When I really thought about it, what Asahina was talking about was prerecorded, but for me it was a live broadcast. I didn’t have time to listen to her dithering recollections. I still hadn’t come up with a good excuse for skipping out on the brigade meeting. I should’ve left my phone on vibrate. If I didn’t answer, it would only seem more suspicious to Haruhi. But before I answered, I had to ask something.

“Asahina, do you remember if I answered?”

“Um, yes, it seemed like you did.”

I guessed I’d better answer.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Haruhi’s voice already sounded highly irritated. I answered truthfully.

“I’m at home in my room.”

“What, you’re ditching?”

“Something came up.” Here’s where I would have to start lying.

“What do you mean, ‘something came up’?”

“Uh…” Just then, my eyes lit upon Shamisen crawling out from under my bed. “Y’know, Shamisen got sick, so I took him to the vet.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, my sister’s the only other one at home right now. She called me.”

“Huh. What’s he sick with?”

“Uh… alopecia areata. Y’know, fur loss.”

Hearing my half-assed answer, for some reason Asahina clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Shamisen’s losing his fur?”

“Yeah. The vet said it was stress-related, so he’s resting at home now.”

“Do cats even have stress problems? And doesn’t Shamisen always ‘rest at home’?”

“Well, yeah, but my sister messes around with him too much, apparently. So my room’s been turned into a Shamisen preserve, and my sister’s not allowed to come in.”

“Huh.” Whether or not she bought it, Haruhi sniffed and fell silent before continuing. “Are you with anybody else now?”

“…”

I took the phone away from my ear and stared at the call-time display on the screen.

How did she know? Asahina hadn’t said a word and had even covered her mouth so as to avoid carelessly letting anything slip.

“No, nobody’s here.”

“Oh yeah? Something was weird about your voice, so I was sure somebody was there.”

Her intuition was as sharp as ever.

“It’s just Shamisen. You want to talk to him?”

“Not really. Just tell him I hope he gets better soon. Bye.”

She hung up surprisingly briskly.

I tossed my cell phone onto the bed and looked at the calico cat as it rubbed up against Asahina’s leg. I wondered where I should shave a circular patch of hair off the feline—if Haruhi decided to come visit him, God forbid, I’d be in trouble otherwise.

“So what did Haruhi do after that?”

Asahina made a face as she tried to remember, absentmindedly scratching Shamisen behind the ears. “Umm, we were in the room until after five o’clock, and then we all went home. Suzumiya… seemed kind of quiet. All she’d done in the clubroom was read some magazines…”

It seemed that even Asahina was starting to pick up on Ha-ruhi’s strangely subdued behavior lately.

I wondered about the others. Nagato had surely sensed it.

Drawn in by her scratching, Shamisen put his front paws on Asahina’s skirted lap and purred. Asahina stroked his back as he occupied her lap.

“There wasn’t anything really out of the ordinary… I’m sorry. I don’t remember very well.”

It couldn’t be helped, I guessed. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you about Koizumi’s facial expressions a week ago, myself. If I’d been asked, all I could’ve said was that he seemed normal.

“Was there anything else? Tomorrow or the day after?”

Her eyes downcast, Asahina held the purring Shamisen’s tail lightly. “How far ahead should I go?”

I told her to just give me my future schedule, and I’d do my best to make it happen just like she remembered.

“Um, well, the next day is a holiday, so we all go on a treasure hunt.”

A treasure hunt? I asked.

“Yes. Suzumiya brings a treasure map, and we all go digging.”

Digging? Seriously? I asked.

“Yes. Suzumiya got the map from Tsuruya. She said that when they were organizing things in the family storehouse, this weird map that one of her ancestors had drawn just popped up. Like”—Asahina fluttered her fingers like tiny fish swimming through the air—“A weird old map drawn in ink.”

Tsuruya. She’d gone and given Haruhi another thing we’d all pay for. And really, digging for treasure? It wasn’t like we were in a Heian-era archaeological dig. Where did we go digging, I wanted to know.

“The mountains.” Asahina’s answer was straightforward. “There’s a mountain on Tsuruya’s estate. The round one you can see from the road that goes down the hill on the way home from school.”

Just thinking about it was exhausting. This wasn’t Onshu no Kanata, and doing a bunch of exhausting excavation after climbing a mountain made about as much sense as going on a long hike to stave off the cold in this freezing February weather. I should say that it came as no surprise that Tsuruya’s family owned their own mountain. Their villa had its own ski slope, so surely they had resources enough to furnish their home with a mountain or two.

I didn’t even try to hide my sigh. “So did you even find a treasure?”

“Um… no.”

She seemed to hesitate before answering but eventually shook her head. “There weren’t any old treasure chests buried any-where.”

I shouldn’t have asked. Despite it being a rare day off, I was going to have to waste the day playing treasure hunter while looking for a treasure we’d never find. There’s nothing worse than knowing in advance your efforts are going to end in vain.

“Also, the day after that…”

More digging? I asked. We’d be better off just boring a hole in the Tsuruya family garden. Who knows what we’d find. A hot spring, maybe.

“No, on Saturday we—we did a city patrol.”

Ah, that. The main activity of the SOS Brigade—wandering around town looking for mysterious phenomena. Now that she mentioned it, we hadn’t done that in a while.

“Pff, not like there’s two straight days’ worth of stuff to do,” I said.

“No… wait—yes, that’s right.” Asahina looked askance for some reason. “Since Monday was also a vacation day…”

I remembered as soon as she said it. Next Monday they were holding the special class entrance examinations, so students were excused from school.

“And did we find anything mysterious?” I asked, thinking that perhaps that was the reason Asahina had been sent back.

“No.” She shook her head without hesitation. “It was the same as always. We drank some tea and ate some lunch…”

It was getting more and more puzzling. As far as I could tell, there was no reason for my future self to send Asahina into the past. I could maybe understand if she’d come from a year hence, or even a few months. But what difference could traveling into this week from next week make?

I watch Asahina vaguely as she fluffed Shamisen’s belly fur, the cat having rolled over on its back.

Since we were only dealing with a week this time, there’d be no need to borrow Nagato’s power, and we could still use her method. At last year’s Tanabata, when Asahina and I had traveled to the Tanabata four years earlier, we’d been frozen in time for three years while we waited to return to our original time. I’d just apply that lesson here. I’d be able to return Asahina to her proper time frame just by keeping her out of sight for a week. There wouldn’t be any need for cold sleep, and while she’d age a week in the meantime, I didn’t think that would make much of a difference.

But in that case, what was the point? There had to be a reason for this—a reason for my eight-days-older self to send Asahina into the past, and a reason for Asahina the Elder to leave another handwritten message for me.

“How did I seem? Did I do or say anything strange?”

“Mmm…” Asahina only continued to pet the squishy furball that was Shamisen, his eyes by now having closed dazedly.

It was time for a different approach.

“Tell me, just what was the situation when my future self told you to travel back in time?”

“That much I remember perfectly, since from my perspective it happened today.” Removing her hand from the cat, Asahina drew several horizontal lines in the air with her finger. “We were doing a fund-raiser in the courtyard. A lottery to sponsor the SOS Brigade.”

What the hell was that? I thought.

“It was a lottery where whoever pulled a winner would get… um, a grand prize of five hundred yen. Suzumiya was drawing people in with a megaphone, and…”

No doubt she was trying to raise money for the club.

Asahina continued her explanation, but with difficulty.

“I was in charge of handing out goods. There were a lot of people, so it was kinda scary…”

I wondered if Haruhi was trying to get revenge for the Se-tsubun event.

“Asahina, what were you wearing? Was it by any chance a shrine maiden’s outfit?”

“Wha—? How did you know?”

Because it sounded like the kind of thing Haruhi would do. It was Haruhi’s policy, when trying to command attention, to start with costume design. Whatever stood out the most was the best, in her view. Asahina’s features by themselves were enough to draw the eye, but when decorated, their power inexplicably grew far greater. In terms of character statistics, I guess you’d call it her charm.

“I handed out prizes to the winners, shook their hands, and took photos with them,” Asahina said, embarrassed, her hand grabbing onto the fur of Shamisen’s cheek. “Then you suddenly took me by the hand and led me to the clubroom. You said we were in a big hurry, and that I should change into my uniform, and I didn’t really understand, but I did what you said. Then you told me to get in the broom closet and jump eight days back in time, to three forty-five PM. You said you’d be waiting for me there, and that I should do whatever your past self told me to do.”

Asahina looked down, her index finger tracing the calico patterns on Shamisen’s back.

“Permission to use the TPDD was granted immediately—so fast I couldn’t believe it. It was like they were just waiting for my request.”

They must have been. Asahina the Elder would have known all of this ahead of time. What I didn’t understand was why had my future self played a role in the time traveler’s plan? I knew that the other, curvier Asahina was the same individual as the one that was here with me, separated only by time. But reason and emotion are different things. How many times was she going to make the younger Asahina travel through time before she was satisfied? C’mon, Asahina the Elder—give me something to work with, here!

If she didn’t, I was gonna happily puke my guts out pretty soon.

The Asahina in front of me was looking depressed again. A pained expression played over her features, not unlike the time a month ago when she was feeling shame over her own powerlessness. If that was it, she shouldn’t have worried—I was plenty powerless myself. Even now, all I could do was try to figure out who I was going to beg for help.

The two of us sighed simultaneously, as Shamisen yawned, bored. Just then—

“Kyon, open up!”

My little sister’s voice sounded from the other side of the door. When I did as the voice instructed, she came wobbling into the room, precariously holding a tray with juice and sponge cake. I guess my mom was being pretty considerate, but when I saw that there were three servings, I could tell my sister was planning to stay. I realized it too late. This was a prime chance to be alone with Asahina in my room, but it sure didn’t seem like that was going to happen. I stared daggers at my sister, willing her to get out of my room, but she ignored me completely and plopped herself down next to Asahina.

“Shami, want some cake?”

As she watched my sister hold a little piece of cake in front of the cat’s nose, Asahina finally faintly smiled.

I guess little sisters can be good for something. As her brother, I hoped she wouldn’t lose that innocence as she got older.

After my sister played with Asahina for a little while, the cat sandwiched between them, Asahina and I finally left my house.

My watch indicated six fifteen, and the sky was already dark. The first day of spring wouldn’t be until next month.

“Kyon, what shall we do?” Asahina murmured, breathing clouds of white vapor as she walked beside me. She was walking a bit uncertainly, having borrowed a pair of my shoes. I’d figured they’d be better than her school slippers, but now I wondered if they were a bit too big for this particular Cinderella.

“Yeah, hmm,” I said, exhaling.

I was starting to want to have her just stay at my house—that would’ve made my sister happy, but somehow it just didn’t seem like it would work. For one thing, my parents would want to know exactly why she couldn’t just go home. And if some rumor happened to reach Haruhi’s ears, I could wind up in serious danger. Shamisen’s fur would grow back if I wound up having to shave a patch, but I couldn’t very well erase Asahina’s existence. It looked like I’d have to leave the idea of Asahina staying at my house in the realm of fantasy.

The petite junior’s footsteps listed diagonally. Her path finally intersected mine, and our arms touched, causing her to twitch back in surprise, even more adorable than usual. It didn’t seem like it was just the fault of the ill-fitting shoes. I found myself pleased that she was unconsciously leaning on me, but I couldn’t simply enjoy the sensation. I wasn’t confident that I’d be able to support her completely. A falling domino causes another to fall, until they’ve reached the last piece.

So when I started to think about who could be trusted not to fall, there weren’t many candidates.

Haruhi was totally out of the question. If anybody were to ask why, I’d feel no shame in going completely Eraserhead on them.

The other Asahina currently existing in this time period was also out of consideration. Having a matched set of twins walking around would only complicate things—and I had no intention of having to think about time paradoxes any more than I already was.

Koizumi seemed a bit more trustworthy, but I didn’t know how his Agency treated time travelers, and who knew what would happen to Asahina if I handed her over to that mysterious syndicate. Mori, Arakawa, and the Tamaru brothers were all good people, but Koizumi himself had admitted that they were no better than underlings, and I didn’t have enough faith in them to also trust whoever was controlling things over their heads.

Thus, a simple process of elimination led me to a single name. The shadowy power behind the scenes of the SOS Brigade, the one who already knew what was going on. Though she was still backed by an unknown, unknowable boss, it had a less corporeal existence than Koizumi’s superiors.

Yes, the only one remaining was her.

Thus it came to pass that when I started to think about where to go, there was only one option.

It was time to see Yuki Nagato. Having another problem like this was enough to make you want to say “What, this again?” Maybe it was time to start thinking of the alien and the time traveler as a matched set. It seemed like the route from the future to the past always involved a trip to Nagato’s room.

And also— I thought.

Nagato was the one who had pulled Asahina (current) out of the room such that Asahina the Current’s gaze wouldn’t fall upon Asahina (future). Nagato might even be able to tell me just what was going on here.

“Are we going to Nagato’s place?” asked Asahina, her steps slowing.

“You’ll be fine with her,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “She’s got an extra room, and I’m sure she’ll let you stay for a week.”

Heck, I should’ve brought my own pajamas. I even had a good excuse.

“But…” Asahina replied, her eyes a bit downcast. “Being alone with Nagato is a little… um… for a whole week?”

There wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Nagato would never do anything to hurt Asahina. We’d relied on Nagato plenty of times in the past, and she’d even been our companion in our most recent time-travel episode.

“I-I know, but…” Strangely, Asahina looked at me with accusation in her eyes. “I don’t think Nagato will enjoy it very much if I stay with her…”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

How would Asahina know what Nagato did enjoy? I doubted Nagato would so much as flinch even if someone stripped all their clothes off and started dancing around six inches away from her.

I looked at her, waiting for an answer, but Asahina just puffed her cheeks in irritation and faced ahead.

“… Fine then,” she said.

Nagato’s specialty was saying things using the fewest words possible, and this time was no different. In the foyer of her apartment building, I punched her apartment number into the now-familiar keypad and hit the buzzer, to be greeted with—

“…”

The same wordless reaction as always.

“It’s me. Asahina’s with me. There’s a problem.”

“Come in.”

How many times had we had this conversation? I’d brought both the large and small versions of Asahina here, let’s see… four times. The first time was during Tanabata four years ago, the second was also that day. The third time was January second, just last month.

Asahina had the same anxious look on her face, and I’d gotten used to it remaining all the way down the seventh floor hallway on the way to Nagato’s apartment. She clung to my sleeve looking for all the world like some small, frightened animal, and if that sight wasn’t enough to make me want to protect her, then surely nothing else in the world ever could.

“…”

Nagato’s apartment door was open, and she leaned partway through it as she waited for us. She was wearing her school uniform, as usual. The first time I’d seen her in street clothes was during our summer trip, and the last time was during our winter trip. She looked at us, and although her gaze didn’t seem to carry particular meaning, Asahina still shrank away from it.

“Um… excuse us, Nagato. It seems we’ve come to trouble you again…” she said.

Which was quite true.

“It’s fine.” Nagato gave a cool nod. “Come in.”

Asahina’s total fright indicated that she was about as close to getting used to Nagato’s manner as our solar system was to Barnard’s Star. I put my hand on her shoulder and gently urged her forward, at which she finally stepped inside. She was so reluctant that it was hard to imagine that she’d ever slept in this very apartment’s guest room.

“Excuse us…” she said.

Nagato’s apartment had once been completely bare of anything but the basic necessities for living. But now, for the first time since I’d first visited last spring, there hung a set of paisley-patterned winter curtains in the large living room window. That alone would’ve been enough to make an impression on me. The Twister game mat we’d used at Christmas was rolled up and leaning against the wall, although there was still no television or carpet. As we passed through the living room, the only other furnishing was a low, bare table. For a moment I really wanted to get a look in the bedroom to see what, if anything, there was in there, but then suddenly I felt like that was a bad idea. If it was fancy wallpaper or lacy ornamentation, or a canopy bed with big pillows and a fuzzy stuffed animal like a lamb or something, I’d have to reset all preexisting data I thought I had on Nagato. On that matter, the comment I can give is that you could go all the way back to the Mesopotamian era and you still wouldn’t find any trace of anything like that. And when tomorrow came, I already had good intelligence from Asahina.

What I needed to ask about was something else.

“So, Nagato, you know that Asahina here is from the future…” Well, that was a stupid thing to say—obviously she was from the future. “No, what I mean is, you know that this is another Asahina, who came from eight days in the future. Right?” I asked, sitting at the low living room table.

“I know.”

Nagato sat directly across from me, looking up at Asahina, who was still standing. Asahina flinched, then hurriedly sat next to me, her eyes downcast.

“Apparently Asahina herself doesn’t know why she came to this time,” I explained. “She says that I told her to come. So—do you have any idea what this is all about, Nagato?”

Even if she didn’t know, there was a high probability that she’d be able to tell me something about the future.

So when she quickly said, “I don’t know,” I wasn’t worried. So long as she would find out for me. I asked her to just do that synchronization-whatever thing.

But Nagato completely betrayed my expectations.

“I cannot. Currently, I am unable to synchronize with selves from either future or past space-time continuities.”

Before I could ask why, she continued.

“Execution prevention code was applied.”

I definitely didn’t understand that, I told her. Why?

“Because it was determined that it could cause irregularities in my autonomous functioning.”

So was it her boss that had sealed that ability? I asked.

“The Data Overmind concurred.” Something was strangely cheerful about Nagato’s expressionless face. “But it was my decision,” she said, sounding like she was reading a telegram aloud. “The release code is encrypted and held by a different humanoid interface. I cannot release the lock of my own volition. Nor do I intend to.”

Uh, so, in other words, Nagato couldn’t exchange information with her future self, nor did she have any way of knowing future events. So, obviously, she didn’t know the reason why Asahina had come from eight days in the future. So what was I supposed to do? I asked.

“You should act according to your own judgment.” I saw myself reflected tinily in her black pupils. “Just as I am doing.”

All I could do was drop my jaw. Nagato was speaking of her own volition. Had I just gotten a lecture from her?

“By losing the ability to synchronize, I have gained the right to greater autonomy. I am currently able to act according to my own judgment. I am not constrained by the future.”

Nagato was being extremely talkative, by her usual standards. What was bringing this on? I asked.

“I have determined that my responsibility of determining my future self is carried by my current self.” Nagato continued to stare at me. “Which is true of you, as well.”

She spoke very slowly.

“That is your future.”

I closed my eyes and thought.

Suppose I had the ability to predict the future and could know exactly what actions I would take in the next eight days. Likewise, suppose I knew that whatever I did, I couldn’t change the ultimate result. So no matter what I did, I couldn’t change the future, and I would have to arrive at that result—did that then mean that I should give up trying to do anything at all?

Could it be said that the result of all that struggle was that it would all come to naught, that I shouldn’t have done anything from the start, and that if the place we arrived at was going to be the same, that everything else would also be the same?

Nagato must have struggled too. She knew she was going to commit an error. Trying to avoid that while knowing it would be futile must have been hard. Knowing in advance might have even been the cause, but in any case the outcome had been what it was. It was my fault. I’d noticed Nagato was changing but hadn’t done anything about it. Part of me wanted to let Haruhi take some of the blame, but this was a psychological burden only I could bear.

Last month, this Nagato had spoken to the past Nagato.

—I don’t want to.

She didn’t want to be forced to know what to do, and she didn’t want to know herself.

Nagato had known that she would do what she had to. She had trusted herself.

I didn’t have to remind myself of this—I’d been doing it all along, hadn’t I?

I’d heard the words of my future self, then I’d gone back into the past to tell myself those same words. I hadn’t asked myself what to do, nor had I told myself what to do.

—Because I already knew that things would work out.

And things would work out. Because here I was.

“It will be all right.”

The sound of Nagato’s voice brought me out of my reverie. Her dark, emotionless eyes were shining.

“My highest priority remains the safety of you and Haruhi Suzumiya.”

I wished she’d included Asahina in that statement. And maybe Koizumi too. In the snowy mountain incident, he’d said some very supportive things about her, I reminded her.

Nagato nodded. “Yes, in cases of enemy interference.”

What did she mean by “enemy”? I asked.

“Macro-spatial cosmic beings unrelated to the Data Overmind. They once sealed us in a different dimension.”

Those were the bastards who were behind the snowy mountain incident.

“They exist in a far-removed”—Nagato closed her mouth as she searched for the right word—“ place from the Data Overmind. Each knew of the existence of the other, but there was no contact, as it was decided that mutual understanding was impossible. However, they have now come to a realization.”

A realization of what? I asked.

“Of Haruhi Suzumiya.”

How can I describe the familiar feeling that came over me? Everyone and their uncle took special notice of Haruhi, watched her movements carefully, and occasionally tried to mess with her.

“So the snowy mountain disaster was their doing, eh…?”

“Yes. They put me under heavy load, making it difficult for me to avert the danger with my own abilities.”

So what had her boss been doing? I asked. Napping?

“A humanoid interface like me does not have the capability to fully understand the will of the Data Overmind.” Nagato then turned her head down two millimeters. “I could recognize it as a form of communication.”

What the hell kind of conversation was that? They’d just gone and sealed us off. That kind of approach wasn’t going to fly in the modern world, I said.

“They are utterly unlike us. It is impossible to understand their cognitive processes. It is surmised that they are likewise unable to understand our thinking.”

So that was it, then? I really wanted to know what they thought of Haruhi, I said.

“Perfect data transfer is impossible.”

Well, obviously—if they were so stupid as to say “Hello” by sending the blizzard of the century.

“However, some communication may be possible.” Nagato straightened her neck. “If they were to construct a humanoid interface similar to myself, verbal communication, although imperfect, could take place.”

Surely there weren’t any already around here, were there? I asked.

“There may be.”

Although I didn’t especially hope they existed, I had a weird feeling like it would be stranger if they didn’t show up.

“Oh…” Asahina said, exhaling. “It couldn’t be…”

She seemed to have realized something and looked to Nagato, surprised. Nagato looked back at her. A bit surprised, I watched the time traveler and the alien regarding each other.

“What is it?”

“Oh, um, it’s nothing. Really, nothing…”

As I was sitting there stunned by Asahina’s suddenly confused expression, Nagato suddenly stood.

“I will make some tea,” she said, looking down at us before she turned and headed for the kitchen. Halfway there, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Or—” she started. I opened my mouth and waited for her to finish; she concluded with a simple question: “—Dinner?”

Nagato’s menu for the evening was instant canned curry. Preparation consisted of her opening the giant can, which could’ve fed a family of five, pouring its contents into a hot pot, and heating it up—the whole process was indescribably Nagato-like. If Haruhi’d been here, I imagined that she would’ve added all kinds of superfluous ingredients, which notion I likewise found indescribable, as far as which would’ve been more delicious or more fun.

It was definitely dinnertime, though.

Asahina sat at the table and fidgeted, as Nagato had ordered her to stay. When Asahina had offered to help, Nagato had said only, “You are a guest,” and gone about the preparations herself—although that merely entailed getting a can of curry out of the cupboard and finely slicing an entire head of cabbage.

Eventually she ladled the curry over big bowls of rice. In the simplicity of the main dish there was also a kind of magnificence, and the curry was served to Asahina and me alongside large cabbage-only salads. Bowing almost apologetically, Asahina looked down to her dish, and a sweat broke out on her face as her expression stiffened, as though she were trying to gulp down the stomachache that eating such a gigantic serving of curry rice would surely bring.

Nagato sat at her own place. “Eat,” she said.

“L-let’s eat!”

I put my hands together too, since the instant I’d first smelled the curry my stomach had been growling. It was a bit unfortunate that it wasn’t homemade, but curry from a can had its own charm. The sight of Nagato wordlessly destroying her serving and Asahina politely eating her own went pretty well with the food, honestly. Although there was no conversation (had Haruhi been there, she would’ve just talked to herself), the dining milieu left nothing to be desired.

After that, once a dazed Asahina had shoveled the remaining half of her own serving of curry onto Nagato’s dish and we were drinking the after-dinner tea Nagato had brewed, I spoke up.

“That was delicious. So I guess I’ll be heading home in a second—”

“Huh? You’re not staying, Kyon?” Asahina looked at me goggle-eyed as she daintily held her teacup, and even Nagato froze midsip and looked at me.

“No, I, uh…”

The fantasy of saying, “Sure, that’s fine,” rocketed through my mind like a Bussard ramjet–powered spacecraft. The scene flickered, then disappeared: Asahina fresh from the bath, wearing pajamas borrowed from Nagato and bashfully toweling dry her hair, Nagato herself drinking a glass of milk, her hair still steaming—my memory went back to the two futons laid out in the spare room, and then for some reason it was all interrupted by Haruhi’s face, sticking her tongue out at me in my mind’s eye as I snapped back to reality.

“I’m going home tonight. I’ll come by after school tomorrow.” I turned to the owner of the room. “Is that all right, Nagato?”

Nagato nodded.

I faced the trembling Asahina. “Just stay here until I show up. Things’ll work out, you’ll see.”

I wasn’t just trying to make her feel better. If things got really bad, Nagato could always freeze her in time again. The first time we’d done that, it had been to travel three years into the future from that first Tanabata, so a week would be a piece of cake. And I had another matter to think about. Asahina hadn’t traveled back in time for no reason, and my future self must have had a purpose in sending her back. It was weird to be saying “had” about future events, but this much was certain. The letter I still had in my pocket told me that much.

Isn’t that right, Adult Asahina?

I knew she had to be involved in this somehow.

I said my good-byes to an Asahina whose very face incited the desire to protect her and headed home in the winter night, looking up at the sky as I went.

Nagato’s confession that she’d limited her own power occupied my thoughts. It looked like Koizumi had been right on the money. The day when Nagato would become a normal high school student, a being unconnected to the Data Overmind, might not be so very far away. If it came to that, when I had a problem I’d have to get along without Nagato’s power, without giving her more responsibility. We’d be normal friends who had to face problems together.

And without Nagato’s power, I’d be a lot more confused.

But so what?

I’d never regretted what I’d done last December, when I took the world where Haruhi and Koizumi were gone and Asahina didn’t know who I was and returned it to the normal state I knew. But misgivings still remained. On my way home the night Asakura had brought stew over to Nagato’s place—

—I wanted to see that shy little smile again.

If it could somehow exist in this world, then I was all for it.