CHAPTER THREE

The next day.

A glance at the contents of another envelope torn open in a bathroom stall revealed the preceding message. And just as before, a second sheet contained a crudely drawn gourd-like picture, with a label that went out of its way to say “rock.”

That clinched it. Today I’d be a member of the going-home club.

“Which is fine, I guess…”

But what was with these vague instructions? Rocks in the mountains? Which rock, in which mountains? If it was a mountain that Asahina knew about, that meant…

Plop, a pebble tumbled through my mind.

“Oh, right. The treasure hunt.”

According to (Michiru) Asahina, we’d be using our next day off school to go on a treasure hunt. That was the day after tomorrow. She’d said it was on a mountain that belonged to the Tsuruya clan. Which meant another Tsuruya appearance. Tsuruya had swallowed the story of the two Asahinas without complaint, and she would probably just smile when confronted by Haruhi and me, but at this rate I was going to become emotionally unstable myself. It would be a problem for Koizumi too—but hold on.

“So this means Haruhi’s gonna be back to her usual self soon,” I predicted as I headed to the classroom. Tsuruya would bring the treasure map and we’d put it to use the day after tomorrow—so that meant Haruhi would definitely have it in her hands either today or tomorrow. Probably tomorrow. I hadn’t gotten a whiff of excitement off of Tsuruya the previous night, after all, which meant she probably hadn’t found the map in the storehouse yet. If she had, she would’ve tried to force it on me to give to Haruhi.

“Hey, Haruhi.”

Just as I suspected. She was already in the classroom, taking a page out of Nagato’s book and running in low-energy mode as she played the part of the gloomy high school girl.

“How’s Shamisen?” she asked without looking at me, the window fogging up with her breath.

“Ah, yeah, he’s doing okay, I guess.”

“That’s good.”

She doodled a face in the white condensation on the window.

So strange. Having a regular conversation with Haruhi was rarer than seeing Nagato doing something besides reading in the clubroom. It made me even more worried—no, more like uncertain. I wondered if there were Celestials going crazy somewhere.

“What’s wrong? You’ve been so gloomy lately.”

Haruhi sniffed. “What’re you talking about? I’m the same as I always am. I’ve just got stuff on my mind, and tomorr—” She was about to continue, but cut herself off mid-sentence. “What about you? Are you coming to the clubroom today?”

Her expression made it seem like she didn’t care one way or the other, which from my perspective was the most convenient expression possible.

“Shamisen’s still pretty lonely. I can’t just leave him to my little sister, and he has to visit the vet again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’s probably best.”

What was strange, though, was Haruhi seemed to think it was convenient too.

“You get lonely when you get sick. Make sure to stay with him until he’s fully recovered. I want to play with him when he’s well again.”

It seemed like Haruhi thought of Shamisen as a brigade member too, in her own way. The part where she told me to take care of him while he was sick, then bring him over to play once he was better was definitely like her, anyway. I ought to just lend him to her for a week, I told her.

“I’ll think about it.” Haruhi nodded absentmindedly, her breath condensing on the window again.

Nothing makes the passage of time feel slower than sitting there wishing for class to end.

Thus, I gritted my teeth and silently prayed that the teacher wouldn’t ask me any questions, aimlessly copying down the contents of the blackboard, passing the time without remembering a single thing from class, which now that I think about it is what I usually do, realizing anew that this sort of thing was why my grades hadn’t risen one bit, though I found some consolation in telling myself that it was all the fault of having too much SOS Brigade stuff to think about. Yes, definitely. Please ignore the fact that Taniguchi’s grades are just as bad as mine, but he’s a member of the go-home-and-do-nothing club.

Thanks to having shoved my good-for-nothing textbooks into my desk, my bag was nice and light as I picked it up and headed out of the classroom—whereupon Taniguchi (whose turn it was to clean the classroom) called out to me, a broom over his shoulder.

“Yo, Kyon.”

His eyes seemed kind of flat. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t have time to find out. Asahina was waiting for me. It was just like in Run, Melos!, with Selinuntius waiting for Melos’s return to save him from certain death. I had to make haste.

But Taniguchi blocked my way, pointing his broom’s handle at me.

“I envy you, Kyon.”

There was a note of bitterness in his voice. What could he possibly envy? I could only think of about a dozen things, I told him.

“That many? No, there are three, at best,” replied Taniguchi irritably. He sighed.

I half wondered whether Haruhi’s melancholy had gone airborne and infected Taniguchi.

“Oh, about Taniguchi—” Kunikida’s face popped out, and he began to explain, gesturing with a dustpan he held. “Turns out he and his girlfriend just split up. So that’s why he’s down. Guess it makes sense.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, half smiling as I patted Taniguchi’s back. I guess the girlfriend in question must have been the one he’d gotten just before Christmas. I’ll bet he felt good and sorry for me, since my own Christmas Eve had been spent enjoying a Haruhi Hot Pot Special.

“Ha ha. With that face, you must’ve been the one who got dumped. I see how it is.”

“Shut up,” he said. The friend I should’ve had sympathy for pretended to brandish his broom, then held it limply at his side. “Just go home already. I’ve gotta clean the classroom and you’re in the way.”

Kunikida gave a pained grin. “I hate to say it, but it was only a matter of time, Taniguchi. I admit I never met or saw your girlfriend, but from what you said, she just didn’t sound serious about you.”

“Oh, like you’d understand. Well, that’s fine. I don’t want you to understand.”

“And c’mon, I mean, her reason for going out with you was way too weird. Like—”

“Whoa, hey! Don’t say any more! I’m serious! I just want to forget the whole thing!”

I wanted to stay a little longer to see how this overwhelmingly high school–like conversation between two good friends would play out, but I was in a hurry.

“Well, don’t overthink it. A great guy like you will definitely meet a nice girl eventually. Every dog has his day, y’know,” I said. I didn’t wait for his reply before I headed out into the hallway, walking away without looking back. At least I’d given him some words of encouragement. I’m not such a jerk that I’d turn his heartbreak into a joke—although to be honest, part of me thought he deserved it. I was just happy that the friend who’d gone sprinting ahead of me was now back at the same starting line as the rest of us. We were all in this together.

“But—why was he so jealous of me?”

The thought occurred to me as I was opening my shoe locker, and with it came another, stranger notion: the terrifying possibility that if a romantic entanglement had been the source of Taniguchi’s malaise, perhaps the root of Haruhi’s gloom was something similar. I shuddered at the very idea, then laughed it off.

“Couldn’t be.”

The essentially absurd notion of Haruhi being lovesick was about as likely as my being the first-round draft pick in the Major Leagues next year. Which was fine, since I didn’t particularly want to get picked, but I had to admit I did want to know what was on Haruhi’s mind. I didn’t think she was just sitting glumly in an unheated classroom, hand warmers in hand, but…

“Ah, whatever.”

I didn’t have time to think about any of that right now. And anyway, Haruhi would be back to her usual self in no time. I already knew we’d be going on a treasure hunt the day after tomorrow, and since I knew about it in advance, I couldn’t afford to worry about extraneous things. A single misstep could set the entire SOS Brigade on the wrong path, an outcome I definitely wanted to avoid. It would be like exposing a harmless bacterium to radiation, thus creating a deadly disease. Even if it would have served the cause of science, it was too great a risk. I had to keep my priorities straight.

“All right, time to do something about the immediate future.”

I wouldn’t get anywhere worrying about the future of humanity. For me right now, the most pressing problem was the other Mikuru Asahina.

I first headed home, then picked up my bike and headed immediately for the Tsuruya estate.

On the way over, I’d planned to call ahead for Asahina to come out, but Tsuruya wasn’t home from school yet. I thus assumed that it would take some time for me to get a message through to (Michiru) Asahina the freeloader, but the servant who answered the phone seemed to have been informed of the situation by Tsuruya, and all I had to do was give my name, omitting my self-introduction, and I was immediately transferred to Asahina. Tsuruya sure came in handy for times like this. We’d forgotten to arrange it ahead of time, yet she’d perfectly anticipated what I would need. If she were to become a personal assistant or something in the future, she definitely had the talent for it.

And Asahina was every bit as laudable as Tsuruya—“Just wait a moment, I’ll be right there,” she said over the phone before hanging up. Actions speak louder and more quickly than words. In my pocket was the letter containing the day’s instructions, along with a flashlight, just in case.

I’d been to Tsuruya’s home several times, so my legs took me smoothly there. I could stand the February cold, and was just happy it wasn’t snowing. The wind in my face made my nose and ears tingle as I arrived at Tsuruya’s place and rang the bell.

Asahina popped right out the front gate. “Kyon!” she said with a relieved smile, no longer wearing her school uniform but instead pants and a thick, fluffy coat. “I borrowed some clothes from Tsuruya,” she said, adjusting her collar as she noticed my gaze. “I can’t very well get clothes from home, after all.”

“You don’t remember any of your clothes going missing?” I asked as I flipped my bike’s kickstand up, at which Asahina looked suddenly abashed.

“I don’t, um, remember… but I know my usual clothes were all there. But even if they disappeared, I might not have noticed… I mean, not that I have that many clothes, really, it’s just—”

She didn’t have anything to worry about. If a single pair of underwear went missing from my dresser, I’d never file a police report over it. Even if I managed to notice, I’d just assume I’d misplaced them somewhere.

I gave Asahina a gentle look. Whether they were borrowed or not, I told her, she was definitely clear for launch.

“No, not at all!” Asahina waved her hands, bashful. “The sleeves and hem are too long for me, and also…” She hugged her chest, turning a bit red before stopping. “Um, never mind.”

I was feeling calmer and calmer. Clothes that fit the long-limbed, slender Tsuruya would definitely have lacked material in certain places when worn by Asahina. It was easy to guess which part of her outfit was the cause of her stiff demeanor. It was a shame that her upper half was hidden by her coat, but I could worry about that later.

I showed her the message from the future I’d gotten from my shoe locker. “This is what we have to do next. Any ideas?”

Go to a mountain and move a rock—it was like a side-quest from a role-playing game. Worse, the purpose for the quest was far from clear, and since we didn’t even know whether we’d get some kind of loot upon completion, it wasn’t even a very good game.

“Er—the mountain? The only place I know of is… hmm. A strangely shaped rock… oh, could it be—?” Asahina murmured as she read the letter, the paper fluttering in the breeze, cocking her head curiously like a chipmunk that’s lost sight of its nest. “I do have an idea. I think this is where we went for the treasure hunt. Or I mean, that’s the only place I know, so… but why?”

Naturally, I had no idea myself. But I could guess.

“Asahina—we didn’t find anything, did we? On our treasure hunt?”

“N-no.”

My fingertips were already turning numb from the cold as Asahina refolded the letter uncertainly. Something felt strange. “It’s strange, though. These directions must have something to do with that treasure hunt.”

“Th-that’s—” began Asahina, looking down. “I wonder…” She looked deep in thought, as though trying to decide whether to voice the feelings that were welling up inside her. The look in her eyes as she shook her head made me weak at the knees. “No, I can’t think of anything. But we should go. Maybe I’ll remember something when we get there.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

It was time to have a look. I felt bad for doing location scouting at the treasure hunt site ahead of Haruhi, but she’d forgive me as long as it seemed new to me tomorrow.

I climbed back on my bike and gestured for Asahina to get on behind me. She sat demurely sidesaddle on the luggage rack; I nearly fainted at the arms that wrapped hesitantly around me from behind, but memories of the previous night brought me back to reason.

“What’s the matter?” Asahina asked uncertainly as I looked left, then right, before starting off.

“Oh, nothing,” was my only answer as I pushed down hard on the pedal.

It was just that I thought I’d spied Koizumi, or somebody Koizumi-like, hiding nearby. Though I had no idea if he was staking out Tsuruya’s house or following us around.

The Tsuruya clan’s private mountain was east of North High. It was more of a large hill than a mountain, and it didn’t have much in the way of altitude. If you really squinted, it did sort of look like a forgotten burial mound, but looking up at the naturally wooded face of the mountain, it didn’t matter whether it was a dormant volcano or a forgotten tomb; it would take the same amount of time to climb, and there wasn’t a good path. All there was was a steep, narrow animal track, so if the bear wanted to go over the mountain, he wasn’t gonna have an easy time of it.

“It’s over here. Yes—we climbed up from here.”

The sun had started to get low as I rode my bike up hills and along fields at Asahina’s direction. At the base of the mountain were drained rice paddies and vegetable plots, and not a single person in sight.

“I wonder if we should just be climbing up somebody’s private mountain.” I looked wearily up the slope, and Asahina giggled.

“Tsuruya said it was all right. Ah—it was a few days ago that she said… no, wait, relatively speaking, that would be tomorrow, so… right. She’ll give you permission tomorrow too, Kyon.”

Perhaps having finally become accustomed to her situation, Asahina seemed to feel free to think back on her own past.

“I can’t tell you, um, very much. Only that what we did was a treasure hunt and a city patrol… that’s all I can say.”

What about the Haruhi-sponsored lottery? I asked.

“Oh, yes, that’s—”

Asahina looked flustered. I asked if she was forgetting anything else.

“Um, er…”

She was strangely fidgety. Was there something she couldn’t tell me? I asked—more classified information?

“Y-yes, that’s right. It’s classified. Or, well… probably.”

So far as I could tell from her expression, her mood wasn’t particularly serious. I didn’t think that the ever-secretive time traveler would make a joke now of all times, but it seemed likely that this Asahina knew something she wasn’t telling me. The only one who was completely in the dark was the other Asahina in this timeline. What a pain. If I were to express it as an inequality, I’d put it this way, more or less: Asahina The Elder > (…) > “Michiru” Asahina > Asahina the Younger.

I must have sighed louder than I meant to, as Asahina’s face turned uncertain again.

“Um, Kyon…”

If I turned my back on her I was sure she’d start crying, and I wasn’t so much of a sadist that I could ignore those eyes of hers, and in fact a sudden rush of affection made my expression turn as soft as Shamisen’s belly.

“No, no, it’s fine,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

According to this Asahina, it had been my eight-days-later self who had directed her to time-jump eight days back. That version of me knew everything and had sent Asahina into the past. Since that was just the future version of me, if I just asked him he’d be able to tell me everything—except I’d be him, so there’d be no need to ask. Right?

“Let’s get this mission done before it gets dark,” I said, laying my hand on Asahina’s shoulder.

Asahina looked up at me with her big puppy-dog eyes and nodded. “All right. I’ll show you the way. We didn’t climb that high, so it’ll be close.”

We headed into the dense forest. Normally I would’ve been at the lead, clearing dangerous branches and roots away with a machete, but given that it was winter and all the snakes and bugs were hibernating, there wasn’t that much danger. The best thing I could do was stay behind Asahina to make sure she didn’t slip and fall.

“Ah—whew… wha—”

Unsurprisingly, helping Asahina safely climb a mountain was tricky—and trickier still, since we barely had a trail. Normally when ascending a slope, you’d follow a switchback pattern, but as far as I could see there was no way to do that. We’d have to step on logs and grab onto craggy rocks to climb our way up.

“Eyaaah!”

I had to smile inwardly at the unexpected side benefits that came with constantly catching the tripping Asahina as we made our way nearly straight up the face of the small mountain. When I looked closely, I saw here and there signs of human passage along the route we were taking. Even so, this was more of a glorified animal track than a proper trail, although if it had been entirely wild, Asahina and I would never have been able to make any progress at all.

After ten-odd minutes of climbing, I caught sight of a more level spot.

“Here—whew—it’s here. We dug all over the place, but the stone was here.” Asahina was short of breath, and she leaned over, bracing her hands against her knees.

I stopped next to her.

“Huh.”

While it wasn’t very large, there was indeed a flat space on this otherwise sloping mountain. It was completely overgrown with shrubs and vegetation, save for a semicircle of clear space. It wasn’t even ten meters across, and it seemed like it had been cleared to make a convenient rest stop while climbing the mountain. I didn’t know if it was man-made or not. It might’ve been the result of a landslide long past. Given the overgrowth, it definitely wasn’t a recent addition. Maybe it was natural, after all.

Once she’d caught her breath, Asahina pointed. “I think that’s the rock from the message. It looks just like the one in the drawing…”

A gourd-shaped rock. A rock…?

“That’s awfully big for a rock,” I said.

Asahina had exaggerated a bit when she’d spoken. It did not look “just like” the one in the drawing. If (Michiru) Asahina hadn’t been guiding me, I would’ve been wandering around on this mountain all damn night.

“I suppose it does look a bit like a gourd…” she said.

The rock sat at the nearer side of the clearing. To my eye it looked less like a gourd and more like the arched back of a sea serpent protruding from the surface of the water. Since it was partially sunken into the surrounding earth, it was hard to spot among the fallen leaves and dry grass, despite its whitish surface.

I checked the letter again.

“ ‘Move this rock three meters west,’ huh?”

It was already starting to get dark. It would be dangerous to stay much longer. I didn’t want to wind up making a misstep on our way back such that we both went tumbling down the mountain.

I handed my flashlight to Asahina and asked her to illuminate the matter at hand. It was time to try moving the rock.

“Ugh, this is heavy.”

Worse, when I actually tried to move it, I discovered a third of it was buried in the ground. This wasn’t just a rock. If you were going to label it, you’d have to call it a boulder.

After much effort, I managed to pull it out, whereupon I took a good look at it. I had to admit it did look not unlike a gourd, if I stood the rock on its end.

I heaved the rock up and tottered over in a direction I thought was vaguely westish, figuring four steps would be about three meters.

“It was just a bit past that,” Asahina indicated. Of course—this Asahina knew where the stone was after it had been moved. “Right, right there. Right about there.”

I dropped the rock onto the ground, where it stuck in the earth with a dull thump. Just as I was about to push it over so it would lay the same way it had previously—

“It was standing,” Asahina corrected me. Her eyes then went wide and she drew a sharp breath. “Just like… a marker…”

I looked down at the rock I’d just dropped.

A marker.

When I looked at it like this, the rock was really obvious. I didn’t know what kind of mineral it was, but its white color was strangely prominent even in the gloom, and its shape was odd too. If you were to call it the “White Gourdstone” or something and show it off to people as an ancient ruin of some kind, people would definitely believe you.

“Asahina, does Haruhi by any chance make us dig beneath this rock?”

“Yes, that’s right. Although the only ones digging were you and Koizumi.”

And she’d said we didn’t find anything. Was that true? I asked.

“It’s true,” she said, her eyes downcast. “We didn’t find any treasure…”

I heaved a sigh and dusted the filthy palms of my hands off against each other.

So what was I even doing? But this wasn’t the time to ask. Not even Asahina had understood the purpose of our prank last night, or the man we’d played it on. The only one who knew for certain was Asahina the Elder. I’d have to ask her. I wasn’t gonna allow this kind of unilateral communication again.

I gazed at the rock I’d just erected and realized another unnatural thing. Since it had been partially buried for so long, one side of it was dirty and covered with soil. Anyone could tell at a glance it had recently been moved from somewhere else.

“And the ground there too.”

The spot where the stone had lain was now exposed, the crater of black soil obvious.

“What did it look like when you got here?” I asked.

Asahina made a face of concentration as she thought back. “Hmmm, nobody said anything, so I didn’t really notice. I guess all Suzumiya cared about was digging holes…”

In which case, we could’ve just left it be, but I figured we might as well make a bit of an effort.

Asahina and I gathered up dried grass and ivy twigs and scattered them over the crater left behind by the now-moved rock, tamping them down with our feet. We also brushed off the soil that clung to the once-buried side of the rock. It wasn’t perfect—the difference between the two sides of the stone, one of which had weathered years’ worth of changing seasons while the other was buried in the earth—was too great.

We did our best, but the sky was getting dark, so it was all we could do to finish up at a convenient stopping point. I wasn’t sure how hard the work actually was, but it was hard enough.

“Let’s go home, Asahina.”

I led the way going down. It was a good thing I’d brought a flashlight. The ancients feared and revered the forest’s darkness—plus they say the descent takes more of a toll on your body than the ascent does.

Asahina stumbled several times, clinging to my back for support, and by the time we reached the foot of the mountain, it was nighttime proper. Just then—

“Oh!” said Asahina, looking skyward. “Rain!”

Within five minutes, the occasional drops had turned to a gentle rain.

With Asahina on the back, I rode my bike as fast as I could to Tsuruya’s house. It was mostly downhill, which made pedaling easier. It took us less than half the time it took to get to the mountain and only a third the effort.

As we arrived through the drizzle, there was someone waiting for us.

“Hey there! Welcome back!” Tsuruya was wearing the same traditional clothing as yesterday, carrying an umbrella in one hand as she smiled cheerfully and opened the gate for us. “Where’d you guys get off to? Nah, never mind! I’m sure you had your reasons! Tsuru-nyan hears no evil and speaks no evil! She does see you, though. Wait—Miku—I mean, Michiru! You’re super dirty! Let’s get you into the bath, hmm?” Tsuruya said in her usual rapid-fire way. “You must be freezing! C’mon, into the bath with you! We’ll take one together! You too, Kyon! I’ll wash your back for you. We’ve even got a traditional cypress bath!”

I would’ve cried tears of gratitude at the proposal, but I could tell from her face that Tsuruya was only joking. Haruhi would say things she really meant while sounding like she was kidding, but Tsuruya would crack jokes with a straight face.

“I’ll just head home. You take care of Asahina—Michiru, I mean.”

I turned to leave, but Tsuruya stopped me. “Hang on just a sec.”

She held the umbrella over me, then produced from the breast pocket of her traditional jacket a piece of paper that had been rolled up and tied with twine.

“Haru-nyan asked for this. Would you give it to her, Kyon?”

She looked completely serious. The thick, aging parchment was partially bug-eaten in places, looking every inch like the kind of paper that would have a map leading to buried treasure on it.

“What’s this?”

“A treasure map!” Tsuruya answered quickly, grinning. “I found it a while ago poking around in the old storehouse. I figured why not give it to Haru-nyan, but then I forgot all about it.”

Was it okay to just give it to Haruhi? I asked. I mean, it was a treasure map.

“Sure, why not? It’ll be a pain to go all the way out there and dig it up. If you find anything, just kick me back ten percent. One of our ancestors was the one who buried it, see, and according to family records, he was a crazy old geezer who loved pranks. I bet he thought he’d get his descendants good! There’s either nothing there or something totally pointless.”

Surely it would be the former.

I took the rolled-up parchment as respectfully as I could manage, but Tsuruya just flippantly handed it over, so there was only so much graciousness I could show.

“Make sure you give it to Haru-nyan, ’kay?” Tsuruya gave a gleeful smile, one eye closed, while a stiff Asahina looked back and forth between the supposed treasure map and me, hastily looking down when she noticed my gaze. What was going on? I wondered. Was there really classified information regarding the treasure hunt? I knew she was sad about being sent back in time with no idea why, but she seemed to have some hang-up about the treasure hunt as well.

“Here, Kyon, I’ll let you borrow the umbrella. Take care on your way home! Bye!”

Tsuruya waved good-bye, and I saw Asahina give a small wave herself before the two disappeared behind the closing gate.

I stood there in the rain, umbrella in one hand, ancient scroll in the other.

A terrible loneliness struck me hard enough that I wanted to break in and help myself to a bath. Was Tsuruya having this effect on me? When you were with someone that cheerful, then left her side, it was like a festival had ended. She was like a one-woman carnival.

“Damn, it’s cold out here.”

I rested the umbrella over my shoulder and started walking my bike.

Haruhi, Asahina, even Nagato—they could all make me crazy.

“Crap, I’m really hungry.”

I didn’t see Koizumi on my way back, even though for once I wouldn’t have minded talking to him.

The next morning, four days after the other Asahina had appeared in the broom closet, the previous day’s rainclouds were quickly moving east, and the clear sky facilitated some serious radiative cooling.

The uphill hike to school helped warm me a bit, but I knew that half an hour in my unheated classroom would make the sweat I’d worked up only chill me further.

I crossed the front grounds and got to the school entryway, then took a deep breath before opening my shoe locker. I knew that the messages from the future wouldn’t stop with the last one, and thus I expected there to be another one this morning, and who knew what I’d be ordered to do this time. But my hesitation was pointless, since after all, I had to get my school slippers.

And indeed, there was a letter.

In fact, there were three.

“C’mon, Asahina, you’ve gotta be kidding me…”

They were even numbered. Each envelope had a number carefully handwritten on it: #3, #4, and #6. Three, four, and… six?

“So were the two earlier ones number one and number two? Guess that makes the first one number zero.”

But why did they jump from four to six? What happened to five? Had she written the wrong number?

I shoved them in my pocket and headed directly for the bathroom, which had by this time become routine.

I opened the envelopes in ascending order.

There wasn’t much time before the bell would ring, so I scanned them quickly, then headed out of the restroom. On the way out, I caught a glimpse of my own face in the mirror and saw that I looked as confused as I felt.

What was Asahina the Elder trying to get us all to do? And while I’m on the subject, I wouldn’t even ask what the point was of sending a completely random man to the hospital, then moving a rock from one place to another. I really wanted to know, though.

I headed to my classroom, filled with half-formed misgivings, where a strangely agitated individual was waiting for me.

“Kyon!”

It was Haruhi who called out my strange nickname and came running over—a girl who, until yesterday, had been strangely melancholy.

“I heard all about it; hurry up and show it to me!”

Just as I was momentarily wondering what the insanely grinning Haruhi was talking about, she interrupted.

“Don’t tell me you forgot it. I’m talking about the thing you got from Tsuruya! You know, the super-awesome one.”

I knew she was mercurial, but surely even Haruhi’s mood swings had a limit. What had happened to the gloomy, almost sick-seeming girl of yesterday? Don’t tell me she’d been replaced by an impostor, I told her.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m always me, and there’s only one me in the whole world!” replied Haruhi with a triumphant smile. “Anyway! C’mon, show it to me! If you forgot it, I’m gonna make you sprint home to get it.”

I just bet she would. Our idle classmates were starting to stare at us. I told her that I tried to live as unobtrusively as I could.

“A goal that boring should be written down on a paper airplane and launched off the roof. Living unobtrusively or conspicuously—none of that is relevant. If you want to talk about your life, do it three seconds before you die!”

I didn’t want to live a life that could be explained in three seconds, but in any case, I helplessly—well, not quite helplessly—got the ancient scroll Tsuruya had given me out of my bag, whereupon it was immediately snatched out of my hand. The owner of the hand that had done the snatching undid the string that held it closed, and then spoke to me in a lowered voice.

“Hey, did you look at this?”

“No, not yet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I didn’t particularly want to.”

“Even though it’s a treasure map? That doesn’t excite you a little bit?”

I already knew there wasn’t even one scrap of treasure, so the only phrase that came to mind here was “pointless waste of effort,” so tell me, please, how I was supposed to get excited about that? Thus, I’d tossed Tsuruya’s terrible souvenir into my bag and hadn’t given it a second glance. I’d had other things to worry about, and I still did. To be perfectly honest, I was thinking about trying to talk Haruhi out of this whole treasure-hunting business, but she was already unrolling the scroll.

“Honestly, I don’t know what Tsuruya was thinking either—giving this thing to you, when she should’ve just given it straight to me! I guess it’s nice to get it first thing in the morning, but I was gonna make it a surprise after school…”

She seemed pleased despite her muttering, whirling around and returning to her seat. Using her pencil case and textbooks as paperweights, she spread the parchment out on her desk and absorbed herself in studying it.

I gave up and sat back down in my own seat, whereupon a new question occurred to me.

“Hey, Haruhi.”

“What?” came her quick reply.

“When did you find out Tsuruya had given me that thing?”

“Last night. I got a phone call from her,” Haruhi said without looking up. “You took Shamisen for a walk, right? Tsuruya spotted you going past her house, and that’s when she gave it to you, she said. I guess Shamisen’s feeling better. Good for him.”

I could only purse my lips at Tsuruya’s tale. I’d like to see the person who’d take a cat for a walk on a freezing, rainy night like that. There was something wrong with Haruhi if she really believed that.

She didn’t seem to notice the silence that indicated my exasperation, her eyes shining like they had at Setsubun. “Take a look at this, Kyon! This is definitely a treasure map. It says so right here!”

I looked down at Haruhi’s desk.

There on the sheet of parchment (which really belonged in a museum) was a picture and a few lines of text, along with the name of the writer. The picture was clear enough. It was done in simple brushstrokes but had skillfully captured the shape of the mountain. The writing was done in squiggly phonetic characters—and since my own classical literature textbook frequently seemed like alien writing to me, I didn’t have a prayer of reading this.

Haruhi translated for me.

“ ‘Upon this mountain is buried something rare. Those of my descendants who would seek it, dig ye here.’ ”

After that came the writer’s name.

“ ‘Fusauemon Tsuruya, 1702, Fifteenth Year of the Genroku Era.’ ”

I didn’t know how many generations back this Tsuruya was, but he’d sure left quite a thing behind. I mean, why’d he need to bury it? I wondered if it was just as Tsuruya had said, a prank reaching across time. If not, somebody would’ve dug it up in the centuries between the Genroku period and the modern era.

“So where on the mountain is it buried?” I asked, disinterested.

Haruhi traced her finger over the ink drawing. “It doesn’t say. There’s no landmark or marker. All it says is that it’s somewhere on this mountain. But that’s okay.” Her energetic gaze assaulted me. “We’ll just start digging, and eventually we’ll come to it or run out of spots to dig! It’ll be Operation Steamroller!”

So who was this “we” she was talking about? Was she just going to get the townsfolk to volunteer? I asked.

“Of course not, stupid.” Haruhi rolled the map back up and retied the twine, placing it in her desk. “We’ll just do it ourselves, obviously. You don’t want your share of the treasure to be any smaller, right?”

If my “share” were actually going to be smaller, I wouldn’t have wanted that, but a smaller share of nothing was still nothing. The bell interrupted my internal muttering, and our homeroom teacher, Mr. Okabe, entered the classroom.

“We’re meeting after school in the clubroom, got it?” said Ha-ruhi, poking me in the back with her mechanical pencil. “And keep this a secret. I want to surprise everybody. And you better act surprised too. Like you just heard about this for the first time. Seriously, I can’t believe Tsuruya spilled the beans like that…”

Haruhi continued to mutter, but it was drowned out by Mr. Okabe’s raised voice and the general din of the rest of my classmates.

So here’s a reliable technique for burning the contents of a class into your brain cells. You don’t actually need any special concentration ability. Just vaguely listen to whatever the teacher’s saying and stare at either the chalkboard or the textbook. Of course it’s better to take notes, but it’s hard to be motivated to take perfect notes every period, which is why you need the technique.

To put it simply, it comes down to this: you don’t have to concentrate on class. But you can’t think about anything besides class. After all, if you’re thinking about nothing, you get bored, and your idle brain will just remember whatever’s coming in from the ears and eyes.

Just give it a try. But please keep in mind that I got this technique from Haruhi—you could say it’s the Haruhi-style Study Technique. You don’t have to study, but you can’t think about anything besides study. But there’s no joy in that kind of life, and I found the idea of Haruhi not thinking about anything difficult to believe, so basically this had to be a crock, although there was nothing I could say to the fact that Haruhi’s grades were excellent.

All that said, it was a tall order for me at the moment. While Haruhi’s vague melancholy had bothered me quite a bit recently, her magic points seemed to have been completely restored by a single sheet of ancient paper—a turn of events I welcomed. It was one less thing for me to worry about.

In exchange, I now had three more letters’ worth of orders from Asahina the Elder. With the help of Asahina from eight days hence, I’d have to put them into action somehow. Even if I’d wanted to do so immediately, they were time-dependent, so I couldn’t just dash out of the classroom immediately and get to work—but neither could I afford to be lazy…

With all these thoughts in my head, it was no wonder I couldn’t absorb any of the class material, but at least I had a unique excuse.

After school, Haruhi herded me off to the clubroom; I felt like a tiny fish being cornered by a cormorant. Thanks to Tsuruya’s improvisation, I couldn’t use Shamisen’s health as an excuse to go home early, and on top of that, I genuinely had no other plans today.

That’s right, the letters I’d retrieved from my shoe locker made it clear that today and the next day were free. My duties would fall on the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. The reason three messages had all arrived together today was simple: after today, I wouldn’t be back at school for a while. Thanks to the holiday and the entrance exams for middle schoolers, it was a four-day weekend.

Time travelers sure did like using shoe lockers as post office boxes. I wouldn’t have minded a bit if she’d just delivered the messages to me in person. I had more than a few things I wanted to ask Asahina the Elder.

Such were the thoughts that occurred to me during class, and even now, being dragged along by Haruhi. Finally, we arrived at the literature club’s room.

“Hey! Sorry for the wait!”

I entered the room, pulled after Haruhi as she gave a cheerful yell and opened the door energetically. A strange nostalgia welled up within me, probably because it had been three whole days since I’d last hung out with the entire membership of the brigade. Apparently my attachment to the group was such that I’d have this sort of feeling after only three days.

Still feeling a bit dazed, I closed behind us the door Haruhi’d thrown open, then gave the brigade members inside another look.

My gaze first landed upon a girl sitting in the corner, school-uniformed, hair short-cropped, thick book open in front of her. Nagato regarded both Haruhi and me with her tirelessly blank expression, but soon returned her attention to the text before her. The small-framed organic android wasted neither words nor actions, her stoic, tranquil manner constant as she occupied her corner.

“Hello, there. It’s been a while.” Koizumi smiled meaningfully, the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle before him. “How’s Shamisen the First doing? If necessary, I can recommend an excellent animal hospital. I have a friend whose relative operates it, and I’m told it’s very good.”

Yeah, I’ll bet. All of his connections seemed to be “excellent,” I muttered.

---

---

“I’m surprisingly well-connected, actually. In many ways,” said Koizumi, snapping a jigsaw puzzle piece into place. “If I follow those connections, I can find nearly anyone. As far as people outside my network of connections go…” he continued, spreading his arms elegantly wide, as though performing on stage. “They’d have to be people that don’t yet exist on this earth.”

He already knew aliens and time travelers, so who else could he possibly hope to be acquainted with? I didn’t want to meet any extra-dimensional travelers, that was for sure. It’d be nothing but trouble.

Koizumi chuckled and cut off his conversation with me, turning to Haruhi. “I believe you said something about holding a meeting today?”

“That’s right! A special emergency meeting.” Haruhi tossed her bag onto the brigade chief desk, then plopped down in her chair. “Mikuru! Tea, please.”

“Okay!” It was indubitably Mikuru in her maid outfit who answered adorably, then hurried over to the kettle.

Of course it was. There wasn’t any problem with Mikuru being here. Still…

“Mmm…” I murmured quietly, my mouth closed. I needed to put my thoughts in order. This wasn’t Michiru Asahina, who even now haunted Tsuruya’s house. This was the Asahina who hadn’t yet traveled a few days back in time.

As she poured hot water from the small, burbling pot, she suddenly looked up to me.

“Um, Kyon…”

She looked worried—exactly like the other Asahina who had appeared three days ago, from what was then eight days in the future. I guess that was obvious. As I was trying to prepare myself to say something, she continued.

“How is the kitty cat doing? Maybe he’s sick because we took him to such a cold place during winter vacation…”

“Uh, n-no…” I stumbled over my words. This Asahina didn’t know anything. She had no idea that five days from now, in the evening, she would jump back in time to three days before today. Man, this was getting hard to keep track of.

“Shamisen’s been doing better since yesterday. He’s probably rolling around in my room right now.”

Asahina smiled beautifully, which made me feel even guiltier. (Michiru) Asahina already knew that Shamisen’s supposed illness was a total lie, which was why she hadn’t said anything about it, but this Asahina was worried about him and was trying to comfort me—all because of that big fat lie. It made me want to bow my head in apology.

“Please do let me play with him again sometime. He’s such a cute kitty.”

There was nothing cuter than Asahina, though, not within five hundred light-years of this planet, but if she thought a cat was a good excuse to come visit my house, I’d prepare cats aplenty, I told her—although Shamisen was always bringing a black alley cat over; probably his girlfriend.

“Hee hee. That’d be nice. Oh—!” Asahina started. “The tea’s spilled.”

Hot water had boiled out of the teapot. She’d been distracted by her conversation with me about the cat. This seemed to fit Haruhi’s idea of Asahina as the “clumsy maid.” Her arms folded in satisfaction, Haruhi watched Asahina wipe the table.

I pulled out a folding chair and sat down next to Koizumi, while Haruhi took out the current object of her obsession and waited to make her announcement.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Asahina brought a tray with two teacups on it, serving Haruhi and me. I figured Haruhi would only be able to wait until we’d had a single sip of tea, but contrary to my expectations, she didn’t seem to have any intention of standing. She sipped her tea, then leaned back in her chair at the brigade chief’s desk, a cocky grin on her face as she turned on the computer and idly flipped through a magazine. Our eyes would meet occasionally, whereupon she’d look serious for a moment, then go back to grinning—the woman of a hundred faces, indeed. What did this portend?

Koizumi continued to work on his puzzle, pretending not to notice, while Nagato hadn’t reacted at all. Asahina busied herself with the second round of tea, and while things seemed pretty much totally normal, “normal” was totally weird today. What was Haruhi wasting all this time for?

The answer was soon entirely clear.

The room’s peace was broken not by a cry from Haruhi or a PA announcement telling students to go home, but rather a rhythmic knock on the door.

“Heya! Here I am! Can I come in?”

I heard a high, familiar voice as Haruhi bolted to her feet.

“We’ve been waiting! C’mon in, c’mon in!”

In a rare display, the brigade chief opened the door herself to welcome in the guest.

“Hey there, long time no see, everybody-but-Mikuru! Oh, I guess I saw you yesterday, huh, Kyon? Shami’s great, you should bring him by again!”

Tsuruya’s loud voice rang out. She and Haruhi had their arms around each other’s shoulders, and she grinned as though they were about to bust out in a line dance. Here we go again, I thought.

“Yup, that’s right! A treasure map! Treasure’s about three hundred years old. It’d be great if it’s Genroku-era gold coins or something!” Tsuruya sat cross-legged on a folding chair as she munched down on the rice crackers that were served with her tea. “Hadn’t been in the storeroom for like five years—we just keep stuff we don’t need anymore there, see. Found that scrap of paper in the family storeroom, y’know, in a basket buried under a bunch of junk!”

Tsuruya gulped down tea from the nice guest-use-only teacup, then stood up and pointed at the whiteboard.

The map had been stuck to the whiteboard with magnets at its corners, while Haruhi stood beside it and patted Tsuruya’s back with the pointer she held. Haruhi sure seemed happy.

“They’ve tried to get us to turn that mountain over to the state, but my ancestor said in his will that we can’t ever do that. It must be because of the treasure! Is that what you were getting at, Ancestor Guy?” Tsuruya clapped her hands together and made a quick bow toward the sun, as Haruhi smacked the whiteboard with her pointer. “So that’s that.”

So what was what? All we’d heard was Tsuruya talking about her ancestor’s will, I pointed out.

“Obviously we’re going to go search for the treasure her ancestor buried. What would be the point of this story, otherwise?” Haruhi’s mouth was open wide, her white teeth showing. “That settles it—we’re going tomorrow. If we don’t hurry, someone might beat us to it. Assemble at the usual station, nine AM. We’re heading to the mountains! And don’t worry; I’ll bring everything we need.”

It went without saying that I was completely unsurprised. I was the one who’d gotten the map from Tsuruya yesterday, and I’d heard we were going on a treasure hunt three days earlier from Asahina, and again this morning from Haruhi. I had no confidence in my ability to fake being surprised now. I brought my mostly empty teacup to my lips and pretended to take a drink, but it turned out there was no need.

Only one person in this room was surprised.

“Eh? Wha—? Treasure hunting? Mountain climbing? Ah—I’d better make some lunches!”

Only Asahina.

Nagato, her book still open, followed the tip of Haruhi’s pointer in silence.

“Well, now. This could indeed be fascinating, from an anthropological and archaeological perspective. I look forward to it.” Koizumi smiled, ready as ever to support Haruhi’s plans.

If Haruhi’d been hoping for everyone to be stunned by her plan, she’d been sorely mistaken. But she seemed not to take notice of the lack of surprise. “That’s about the size of it. If we find anything, we’ll split it equally—Tsuruya gets a share too, for her support.”

“Sounds good!” said Tsuruya, a little too loudly. “If you find anything worth money, I’ll totally give you guys ninety percent. And if it’s something that great-great-great… actually I forgot how many greats, but anyway, something that Grandpa Fusauemon left to get a laugh out of his grandchildren, I guess my family’ll hang on to it. Either way, I can’t help you out with the digging! I’m busy tomorrow, see.”

Tsuruya gave me a significant look, after which she turned to Asahina and smiled. Tsuruya’s body language made it clear that she was going to keep her promise not to say anything to this Asahina.

I didn’t doubt her. And yet.

For someone who’d claimed she didn’t want to be involved more than necessary, she had given me as much explanation as anyone short of Koizumi. In spite of that—no, given that—her actions were hard to understand. At least when she helped out with the baseball tournament, or when we’d borrowed her family’s villa, those were requests we made of her. But this time she’d gone out of her way to throw Haruhi a bone; it was like she was trying to be more involved with us, rather than less. Maybe she just liked giving Haruhi things she thought Haruhi would enjoy.

Whatever my suspicions, Tsuruya continued to munch away on the rice crackers, happy as a clam.

Still stranger was the fact that Koizumi seemed similarly troubled. And when I thought back, I realized that in all the times Tsuruya had popped into the clubroom, she’d never given him a significant look. If Koizumi’s bosses had told him not to interfere with Tsuruya, then her showing up all the time might put him in a bad position.

Or maybe…

I looked at Koizumi’s excessively mild smile, my mind racing. I didn’t know how much of the conversation we’d had that night was true. Maybe there really was some kind of unwritten agreement between Koizumi’s Agency and the Tsuruya clan. But even so, that was between the Agency and the family, not Koizumi and Tsuruya specifically. Either one or both of them might not give a crap what their organizations said, and it wasn’t as though they had conspired with each other ahead of time.

Tsuruya didn’t seem to know anything about Koizumi’s, Nagato’s, or Asahina’s true natures—she only seemed to sense that something about those three (and Haruhi) was different. It wasn’t her style to pry further. I generally believed what Tsuruya had told me the night before last, and I even believed most of what Koizumi had said—that if the situation involved weighing the Agency against Nagato, I could choose us instead, for once.

“… Kyon! Hey! Are you even listening?”

A sharp voice reached my ears, and I found myself staring at the business end of a pointer. At the other end stood a very severe-looking Haruhi.

“You got that? Like I said, wear comfortable clothes tomorrow! Stuff you don’t mind getting dirty. You and Koizumi don’t have to worry about tools. So as for what we’re gonna need…”

Haruhi gestured to Asahina to fetch a pen.

Asahina, finding herself in the strange situation of being both maid and secretary, took dictation from Haruhi in her charmingly childish handwriting.

“We’ll need two shovels. I’ll take care of those. Also—lunches. Mikuru, that’s your job. Also blankets to sit on, and in case of emergency, a compass, a lantern, and a map. And not this treasure map either, but the real thing. And we’d probably better have lots of snacks for emergency rations. I wonder what we should do for signal flares…”

Just which mountain did she think we were going to climb? The only ones around here weren’t even as tall as the hill the school was on. So long as we didn’t encounter any unexpected phenomenon, there weren’t going to be any emergencies, and if we did encounter something truly dangerous, a compass and a signal flare weren’t going to be of any use—the incident at the end of last year came to mind.

I let a soft sigh slip as I watched Nagato’s dark eyes, which were fixated on Asahina’s clumsy writing.

According to what the Asahina from next week told me, we went safely treasure hunting and came back without incident—completely empty-handed, to boot. If there had been some kind of serious incident on the way, she would’ve given me some kind of warning.

We climbed up, we ate lunch, and we came back. That was nothing more than a picnic, really—at least it was for everybody besides Koizumi and me, who would be doing all the manual labor.

I finally felt like I understood why Nagato had sealed away her own ability to synchronize with her other selves. It really wasn’t any fun at all knowing in advance not just what I was going to do, but what Haruhi was going to say and do as well. I wished I hadn’t asked Asahina what would happen.

I supposed it might all balance out in the end. I knew what weekend activity the SOS Brigade had to execute. However, I didn’t have the slightest idea what the purpose of the instructions Asahina the Elder was handing down to Michiru Asahina and me was—so perhaps the former canceled out the latter.

Although I couldn’t help muttering to myself that it was all a loss.

Space on the whiteboard was rapidly disappearing as Haruhi—now entirely given over to the idea of mountain climbing—rattled off item after item to add to the list, with Asahina being forced to kneel down in order to squeeze “tents” and “Sherpa” onto the bottom of the board in tiny letters.

“C’mon, Haru-nyan, it’s not like we’re crossing the Tian Shan on foot. It’s a pretty tiny mountain, really. It’s got cell phone coverage, so if anything happens we can just call for help. They’ll send a rescue squad,” Tsuruya said, grinning. “I played around on the place all the time as a kid. It’s totally bear-free!”

Haruhi smiled back. “Thanks. We’ll be counting on you if anything bad happens.”

So she hadn’t been serious about the preparations? I wondered. Haruhi waved her pointer around.

“All right, everybody! Tsuruya’s giving us so much support; we’ve got to bring that treasure out! Let’s give it our best shot!”

I realized I was feeling strangely calm, which in turn worried me. Haruhi seemed to have returned to her old self, her eyes shining as she looked at me. That alone was enough to push aside all misgivings, and I suppose I felt reassured, or something like that.

In any case, it was always better when people cheered up. Whatever the reason.

After her unilateral decision to go treasure hunting, Haruhi went to the library and got out every Edo-era reference book, map, and historical novel she could find, in an effort to deduce more about Tsuruya’s ancestor (who’d apparently been a headman or merchant), but such deductions were really no more than guesses, and after about an hour of this, our “emergency meeting” was concluded.

Incidentally, Haruhi unreasonably hoped for “something more interesting than boring old coins,” but when Nagato closed the paperback she was reading, Haruhi followed suit and shut the encyclopedia of matchlock firearms into which she’d been gazing.

At that point, everybody headed home. I was hoping I’d have the chance to talk with Tsuruya on the way down the hill, but the opportunity never arose. She and Haruhi briskly took up the front; behind them followed Asahina and a silent Nagato, while Koizumi and I brought up the rear. I’d wanted to make sure that (Michiru) Asahina was doing okay over at Tsuruya’s place, but I couldn’t risk asking while Haruhi might be able to hear.

Oh well. I could call later. I’d have to, in order to discuss upcoming plans with that Asahina. One of the three letters that had come this morning contained instructions that required a bit of preparation. I’d have to set something up beforehand. I was doing more and more unpaid errand-running.

Still, I had to admit I was impressed with Tsuruya. As I watched her rapid exchanges with Haruhi and Asahina, she wasn’t letting slip for a moment that she was hosting Asahina’s doppelganger at her house—she just seemed like regular old Tsuruya. She was a classmate I could really count on.

“See you tomorrow! Tardiness equals punishment!”

We split into smaller groups within sight of Nagato’s apartment, and after I waved in response to Haruhi’s voice, all I had to do was pretend to head home.

I ambled along toward my house, pretending to be a high school student returning home. Once I was out of sight of all the other members, I ducked down an alleyway just to be safe, then called Tsuruya’s house.

After giving my name to a maid, I was transferred immediately to Asahina.

“Hello? Kyon? It’s me.”

I thought of Asahina sitting politely in her small room. “I got more letters today.”

“Ooh, what are they saying this time?” Her last word trailed off into a sigh.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. We’ve got free time today and tomorrow, but it looks like things are gonna get busy the day after that.”

“Ah, okay. I think I see what you mean…”

Now how would she see that? I asked.

“I told you we did another city patrol on Saturday, didn’t I? I did my best to remember how it went, and… well, you were acting a little weird, Kyon.”

It was probably better if I didn’t ask for details. Tomorrow was going to be tiring enough without having to act purposefully weird the next day.

“We’ll talk about that later. Tsuruya’s not back yet, is she? I’m heading over, so I’ll probably arrive a bit after she does.”

The weather made me hurry. I hung up and started off at a brisk walk.

It was again Tsuruya who emerged upon my ringing the doorbell. She must have gotten there just a moment before I did, because she was still wearing her school uniform.

“Hey, I thought you’d show up,” said Tsuruya with a smile as she opened the gate and beckoned me inside. “So, what’s up? How long’s that poor Michiru gonna be cooped up here, anyway?”

I wasn’t totally sure, I told her. But it would probably just be for a few more days.

“I like having her over; she can stay as long as she wants. She’s so cute, seriously! It’s like, just seeing her at school I never knew Mikuru—er, I mean, I never knew she was so cute! I just wanna hug her and go to sleep!”

I sincerely hoped she wasn’t actually doing anything so desperately enviable, I told her.

“Oh, no. Only thing we do together is bath time. But Michiru—when she wants to say something, she sorta stops like she’s wondering if she should. I mean, that’s super cute too, but I feel bad for her. She really doesn’t have to worry about it.”

Tsuruya led me to the apartment. Asahina was there on the tatami-mat floor, sitting just as politely as I’d imagined. The short rough-spun jacket she wore over her traditional kimono gave her a fresh quality.

“Oh, Kyon—”

The relief she seemed to feel at my arrival made me feel pretty good. It made me want to get down and give her a traditional bow of greeting.

As I ventured to close the door behind me, I ran right into Tsuruya’s satisfied smile. She seemed to want to ask me something, and there was indeed something I needed to say.

“Tsuruya, if you’ll excuse Michiru and me—we need to speak in private. It will only take a moment.”

“Oh reeeally?” Tsuruya peered over my shoulder at Asahina. “Just the two of you? In this little room? I guess…” She watched Asahina’s reddening face with amusement. “I guess I’ll just go get changed. Hee hee—you two enjoy yourselves!”

Tsuruya strode gracefully back to the main house. I watched her go, then ducked back into the small apartment. Asahina looked tense, and she was staring down as though counting the stitches in the tatami mats. I wanted to tell her not to be so nervous—it made me feel bad.

I swept various carnal desires out of my mind, forcing myself to concentrate on the contents of my school bag.

“I mentioned them on the phone, but here are the letters—the ones that came today.”

I presented the envelopes to Asahina—well, #3 and #4, anyway. I’d keep #6 to myself—it was apparently meant for my eyes only. And it was probably the last one too. I assumed there wouldn’t be any more. If #5 arrived, that was a separate matter, so I figured we’d just deal with pressing matters within #3 and #4.

First, #3:

On the second sheet, there was a random address that was some distance away, along with a picture of what seemed to be the storage device. It was reminiscent of a memory stick, but I couldn’t be sure. I mean, it wasn’t a great picture, to be honest.

Next, #4:

This note also had a second sheet. On it was a cute little illustration of a turtle, with a speech bubble saying, “Take good care of me!”

Both letters had the same postscript: “P.S. Bring Mikuru Asahina and no one else with you,” followed by a single line of the symbols only she could read.

Asahina read the letters with a serious face, and after finishing the second one, she sighed. “I just don’t understand. A turtle…?”

It would’ve been stranger if she had understood why now, in the middle of freezing winter, we were throwing a turtle into the river. The only part I understood was the bench the second letter referred to—it was the same bench on which, last year, Asahina had confessed her true identity as a time traveler to me.

“But we must do it.” Asahina traced her finger over the code on the letter, looking up with resolve. “We may not understand the reasons yet, but there is definitely a purpose for all of this. Otherwise…”

Asahina’s eyes trembled in sadness for a moment.

I could guess what she was thinking. Otherwise—there wasn’t any purpose in her being here. And even less purpose for there being two of her.

I suddenly wanted to hug her close, but I didn’t. I’d been warned off by Tsuruya, for one thing. And I couldn’t just ignore my conscience.

“Anyway, Asahina.” I attempted an attitude adjustment. “You said we were on city patrol Saturday and Sunday, right? Doesn’t that conflict with these directions?”

The Saturday directions were vague, only saying “by dusk,” but about Sunday it was very clear: ten forty-five AM. It would be difficult for any SOS Brigade member to pull that off—and I couldn’t just sneak off alone either.

“Did you make some kind of excuse for being absent?” I asked.

“No. You were there, Kyon,” said Asahina, returning the letters to their envelopes like they were precious things. “But we drew straws to split up into groups, like we always do. I was thinking about it before… on Saturday morning I was with Suzumiya and Nagato, and you were with Koizumi, and then in the afternoon it was Suzumiya, Koizumi, and me, and you were with Nagato…” Asahina nodded slightly as though confirming the contents of her memory. “Yes, I’m sure. Then on Sunday morning it was Suzumiya, Koizumi, and me together, and you and Nagato. Then in the afternoon we were dismissed… wait, what?”

She seemed to realize something mid-sentence—probably the same thing I’d realized myself.

That was an awfully convenient coincidence.

For me to be able to carry out these instructions with this Asahina, I would need to be paired up with Nagato. With five people, one of the groups was always going to be a pair, so what were the odds of that pair being the same two people, in two tries out of three? I wasn’t going to bother doing the math, but I was sure they were pretty low.

And Nagato already knew the situation. I was sure that rigging the outcome of the straw-drawing would be child’s play for her, even now. She’d do it if I asked. And this was the outcome.

“I wonder,” said Asahina, uncertain. “But it has to go the way I remember, doesn’t it? Did Nagato cooperate with us?”

It was a troubling thought. The pairings in Asahina’s memory were fixed. Her memories weren’t even a week old, so they had to be correct. So would I naturally be paired up with Nagato, or did we need to rig it?

I didn’t agonize over it for very long.

“We’ll get Nagato to help,” I said. “I know it feels like cheating, but we’ll be in real trouble if things don’t work out properly. She’ll understand.”

“I agree,” said Asahina readily. “You seemed a little off during the patrol, so that must have been it—I think it was because you asked Nagato to fix the lottery.”

So how was I supposed to look? “Off?” What did that mean? I asked.

“That’s… um… well, just kinda off,” Asahina mumbled. It would’ve been nice if she could’ve given me a concrete example of the offness, I told her.

“I’m sorry; I don’t know how to explain it…”

She didn’t have to apologize, I said—it wasn’t like it was that important.

“But… oh, right. On Sunday, when Suzumiya, Koizumi, and I were at the bookstore—” Asahina put her finger to her head, as though having remembered something. “Suzumiya got a prank call on her phone.”

Who from? I asked.

“From you.”

Me? I would go to the trouble of prank-calling Haruhi now, of all times?

“Yes, that’s what she said. She said she got a weird phone call from you. That your joke wasn’t funny at all. Then she hung up right away. I think it might have been right around eleven, maybe?”

So now I had another mysterious prediction I had to fulfill. After I threw the turtle into the river, apparently I had to call up Haruhi and tell her a bad joke.

“Did she say anything about what I said?”

“No, not to me. But then at lunch when we all met back up, you apologized to her.”

That went beyond mysterious and right on into absurd. Why the hell would I apologize to her? I asked.

“You said you were sorry for telling a bad joke.”

More absurdity. Me, bowing my head in a sincere apology to Haruhi? Let’s just say it didn’t happen very often.

When I pressed for more information, Asahina just said she didn’t know. My exchange with Haruhi had apparently only involved a couple of statements before it was over and we’d moved on to the next subject.

The more I knew about my future actions, the less sense they made. If anybody could interpret them, they were welcome to try. I’d given up, myself.

“Anyway, about that turtle,” I said, holding up the #4 envelope. “We’re not going to just find a turtle wandering around this time of year, so we’re going to have to find one ahead of time.”

I didn’t have the heart to try to just dig up a hibernating turtle. For one thing, come Sunday I would have done plenty of digging already, thanks to the treasure hunt. Wait—don’t tell me the punch line of all this was that we would dig up a turtle while searching for treasure.

“No, we didn’t find treasure or a turtle.”

Right. I’d already heard that our so-called treasure hunt would amount to no more than a hiking trip. Either way, I couldn’t imagine that we’d dig up anything lucky. “I guess it can’t be helped. We’ll have to buy one.”

There was a home improvement store in the neighborhood that had a pet corner. I’d go there to buy boxes of canned food for Shamisen, and they also had an aquarium with a bunch of pond turtles moseying around. That was the ticket. I’d pick one up on my way home. I couldn’t very well bring it along on Sunday’s SOS Brigade activities, so I’d leave it in the care of this Asahina.

The plans were really piling up. So much for enjoying a nice, relaxing weekend.

Asahina and I worked out plans for where we’d meet and what we’d do on Saturday, whereupon I stood up.

She saw me to the apartment’s front door; upon opening it, I saw a cold-looking Tsuruya, who’d changed from her school uniform into regular clothes.

“Well, well, well, you two certainly took your time! Are you sure you didn’t do anything, Kyon?”

Her grinning face was suspicious. I wondered if she’d sneaked a peek through the door’s crack. Good thing I hadn’t actually done anything. Getting the crap beaten out of me by a nice upperclassman like Tsuruya wasn’t my idea of a good time.

I made some vague excuses and took my leave of the Tsuruya estate, the image of Asahina’s reddening cheeks seared into my retinas.