Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu was created by Tanigawa Nagaru and Noizi Ito. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai was created by Hirasaka Yomi and Buriki. To-LOVE-Ru was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. School Days and associated properties were created by 0verflow. Other series parodied here were created by other authors. This is parody, protected speech.

Diabolical Styles
Chapter One: Kodaka

And so it begins. A beginning, we are reliably informed, is a very delicate time. And so we must carefully choose the moment when it begins - a difficult problem, when there are so many possible moments from which to choose only one. Or so it seems. But in truth, the correct moment was chosen long ago. There could only be one moment when this story could begin.

No, that's not true either. While that is the moment, there are others when the story could be said to have begun as well. They are moments every bit as valid as the moment chosen.

There was the moment, a few short years ago, when a girl looked around at the filled seats of an arena, containing more people than she had ever to that point seen, and wondered aloud if this was all the people in the world ... only to be told that, no, it was not even the full population of the city where she lived, much less that of her nation, much less that of the planet on which she resided. It was that moment when she began to realize the immensity of her universe, and her own insignificance. And from that realization would grow something truly astounding.

There was the moment, a few short years before that, when a woman, seated in a beautiful garden and patiently painting a portrait, dropped her brush as she listened to a news report declaring that there had been an attempted assassination of an Empress, and that she had been rushed to a hospital and was expected to make a full recovery. She knew that more of that statement was a lie than the announcer did, and her lovely face twisted in a mask of fury. She never picked up the brush. The masterpiece she was painting would be forever unfinished.

There was the moment, shortly before that, when a woman of the British isles stared at the results of a home pregnancy test, learning that what she had believed was a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling would be far more consequential than she expected. After a few moments of panic, she got up from the bathroom floor to walk to the telephone and call her lover to give him the good news. In an interesting reversal of expectations, he was happier about it than she was.

And further back, before that, there was the moment that a car came to a stop on a road on a rainy day, and a tutor looked out from the window to offer one of his students a ride home, his eyes not quite hiding a predatory gleam that the girl in question somehow missed. Or, perhaps, chose not to see. And further back, before that, there was the moment when that girl's grandfather brought his illegitimate son home to live with his wife and children.

And further back, before that, there was the moment when, two thousand million years or so ago, two galaxies were colliding, or, rather, passing through each other -

But perhaps that is too deep a background.

Instead, we begin at Mahora Combined High School, on the first day of the new school year, 2005, in class 1-D. Thirty students, roughly evenly divided between boys and girls, are introducing themselves as is the standard practice. Some are paying more attention to this than others. Some know their fellow students, and have varying degrees of interest in them. And being teenagers, a good proportion of them are thinking about sex - either sex that they have had, or sex they want to have.

Not all, though.

And one of them stands up and announces, as she has so many times before, "I am Suzumiya Haruhi. I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any espers, aliens, time travellers or sliders in this class, please come talk to me."

And another one, hearing this, takes some vague comfort in the fact that there's at least one person in his class who will have an even harder time making friends than he will.

It's an introduction, of sorts. Perhaps I should introduce myself, as well. I -

No. On second thought, I'll let you figure out who's holding open this window on another world, as someone once said.

Two weeks after that first day of classes, Hasegawa Kodaka's gloomy expectations about the likelihood of his making new friends had proven entirely correct. He'd actually nursed some vague hopes that here, at this school that seemed to be filled with students from all over the world, things would be different. But they hadn't.

And it was so, so massively unfair! That Yuuki kid had hair just a bit darker than he did, and nobody thought he was a thug. The little bastard actually seemed to be making friends with Sawanaga and Itou, while Kodaka was still a pariah. It didn't make any sense.

(Well, it might have made sense if one realized, as Kodaka clearly did not, that Yuuki Rito's friendship with Sawanaga Taisuke and Itou Makoto was a rather shallow one, that Rito wasn't actually all that comfortable with either of them and that they viewed him as a loser who made them look better by comparison. It might also have helped had he been aware that his status as a pariah had less to do with the color of his hair than it did with the perpetual scowl on his face. Said expression, to be fair, had come about after years of being teased and taunted about his hair, so there was a connection, just not the one that he thought. Kodaka believed that his facial expression conveyed the message that he took things seriously, when in fact it conveyed an attitude best described as 'verging on homicidal'.)

At least he could, just like he'd figured he would, take dubious comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only pariah in his class. In addition to the Suzumiya lunatic, whose seat was now just behind his after they'd moved out of alphabetical order, there was the other Yuuki in his class. She was apparently a cousin of some sort to the boy Yuuki, though he'd never seen them speaking, just like she'd never been speaking with anyone else. And then there was -

Huh?

He'd been thinking all this while stomping (or, as he viewed it, walking with a serious gait) down the hallway back to his classroom, where he'd forgotten one of his books, and just as he was thinking about one person in particular, he'd arrived at the doorway to the class and heard that person's voice. Except that he wasn't sure that it was really that person's voice. It sort of sounded like her, but she'd never sounded so cheerful and upbeat.

And it sounded like she was talking with someone, and he'd just been thinking that she never socialized with anyone.

So, like anyone (or at least, anyone with extraordinarily poor social skills) would do, Kodaka slid the door open just a notch to see (a) whether it was really the person whom he thought it was and (b) with whom was speaking in such friendly terms. It soon became apparent to him that the answers to those questions were, respectively, (a) yes, it was in fact Mikazuki Yozora, though he'd never seen the girl who spent most of her time frowning at the world looking so cheerful, and (b) she was talking to nobody.

Literally, nobody. She was chattering away, as girls (he believed) were wont to do, but there was nobody else there. Abruptly, a terrible thought occurred to Kodaka, and the stress which that thought provoked in him sent a tremor up his arm to the hand that was holding the door open, such that it pushed it open even further.

Abruptly, the sounds of girlish chatter ceased.

Well, Kodaka thought, remarkably calmly. I'm doomed.

(He was right, incidentally.)

The cheerful look was entirely vanished from Mikazuki's face, replaced by a hostile, suspicious glare that was entirely focused on Kodaka. (It was not all that different from his own perpetual scowl, but Kodaka was in no position to appreciate that. I am, though.) He decided, based on his vast experience in dealing with girls, that the best way to handle the situation was to act as though nothing was wrong, march into the room towards his desk, get what he'd come back here to get, and then -

"Hey," she said.

Of course no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, does it?

"You were listening to me, weren't you?" she said in a tone which spoke eloquently of death.

Again, based on his countless conversations with girls, he decided that the best option was to lie his head off. "Nope," he said, with complete sincerity. "I didn't hear you talking to ghosts. Not a word of it."

"Ghosts?" she said, anger dissipating in a wave of sheer incredulity. (Is that a word? It is now.) "You think I'm talking to ghosts? Are you as crazy as that Suzumiya wench, or do you think I am? There are no ghosts, and if there were I certainly wouldn't talk to them! What kind of a loser talks to ghosts?"

At this point it would be traditional to switch perspectives to one Asakura Kazumi and Aisaka Sayo, so that one of them could sneeze. Unfortunately, the one of them who is capable of sneezing, as she possesses a functional pair of lungs, was at this particular moment in the grip of orgasm, and so could not sneeze. Really. True fact.

"Okay," Kodaka said, trying to salvage his plan and make a discrete retreat from this uncomfortable situation.

"I was talking to my friend," Mikazuki elaborated on her defense. "My air friend."

Kodaka paused, and, because some forms of social conditioning affect everyone, even when they know better, repeated what she had just said. "Air friend?"

"Yes, my air friend," she repeated what he had just repeated. (Re-repeated? Whatever.) "You know, like an air guitar." She proceeded to drop down from the window sill where she'd been seated, assume the stance and begin strumming with her left hand while her right pressed down on the chords, all the while making noises that, at least to her mind, resembled a throbbing base line. "Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun!" is a reasonable onomatopoeia.

"Ah," said Kodaka, now terrified beyond rational thought. "That's interesting. Well, gotta go!"

"Okay," Mikazuki said with a sigh. "I realize that sounds crazy."

"No!" Kodaka lied. "Not at all!" he lied some more.

She wasn't really listening, though. "But this is the best friendship I've ever had. No chance of betrayal or abandonment. And you have no room to talk about my not having any friends besides this one!" she added as she started walking towards him.

"I didn't say anything like that," Kodaka observed. Clearly, lies had done him no good, so he swore right then and there to always tell the truth. (This was a lie, of course.) "I didn't even think it," he added as his fit of honesty continued.

"But you're thinking it now, right?"

"Well, yes," he admitted. Honesty was not helping either, clearly.

"So tell me, Kodaka, I know that you stalk though the corridors of this school friendless and alone, but was this always the case?" she asked. "Did you have friends at your previous school?"

Kodaka was too startled by how nice it felt to be called by his personal name, rather than his family name, to really give his next words a lot of thought. "Well, no. I hung out with some people, and I guess we were friendly, but I don't really think we were friends."

"Hah. Well. Maybe that's good enough," she said, looking away.

"No," he said. "I want ... I want real friends."
She continued to look away. "Uh huh," she said. "Got any bright ideas for getting them? Bribery won't work, by the way. I've tried."

Deciding to ignore that rather frightening statement, he stammered out. "Well ... I mean ... I could join a club or something. I should probably do that anyway, so I don't stand out so much."

"Oh that's great," she said, tones laden with sarcasm. "Imposing yourself on some people who already have a hobby in common, just because you want friends. That's sure to impress them."

"Well, you never know until you try," he said, at last feeling the door behind him as he continued to back away from her. "And I could always start up a new club. I'm sure the paperwork isn't too much of a hassle. Or something. I dunno. Anyway, have fun with your air friend."

And then he was gone, out of the room, leaving her alone.

Or rather, alone with the air.

"You know what, Tomo-chan?" said Mikazuki Yozora. "That's not a bad idea at all. I'm glad I thought of it."

The rest of the day, after Kodaka's narrow escape was thankfully much more mundane. Escape, leave school, walk to the small house where he and his little sister resided (in dramatic contrast to the dormitory housing of most Mahora students), spend the evening cooking for her and dealing with her weird delusions (a few years too early to be diagnosed as "eighth-grader syndrome", and having a much more interesting cause), bathe with her, do homework, then go to bed.

(Mundanity is in the eye of the beholder.)

He entertained some vague hopes that the next day would be just as mundane as all that, even though he was aware that his own decisions - specifically, his decision to make friends by joining a club - meant that it probably wouldn't be. Aside from that, he was also worried about how to go about doing so. While the first week or so of school had been filled with people trying to recruit for various clubs, he hadn't really been paying attention at the time. Now that things had settled down, he found it somewhat difficult to recall which clubs had seemed interesting.

Despite what he'd said, the notion of forming his own club didn't really appeal. While he could do that, he knew that his new club would have to get a few members in order to become official ... and he had no confidence in his ability to get those new members. No, despite what Mikazuki had said, he'd have to find a club whose activities interested him and hope that shared interests led to friendship. It should work. Probably.

But which club, he wondered as he entered homeroom early. Which club?

And then he saw, in her usual seat right behind his, the answer to his problems. If rumors were to be believed, Suzumiya Haruhi had joined just about every club that they had on offer, for times ranging from a half-hour to a full day. Whatever her reasons for quitting them, she must have picked up a lot of information about them.

Sliding into his desk, Kodaka hesitated a moment, before turning around to look right at the girl. She was staring out the window with her usual expression of discontent, spoiling what even he had to admit was a rather pretty face. "Um, Suzumiya-san?" he began.

She grunted a response which he took as permission to continue speaking.

"Well, you see, I've heard this rumor about you -"

"Yes, I'm dating a sophomore guy, and have been for the last two years," she said, with the air of one repeating oneself, and without a glance in his direction.

"Oh," Kodaka said. He hadn't heard that rumor. For lack of anything to say, beyond an admission of that, he instead said, "Is he an alien?"

Now Suzumiya was looking at him, and he really wished she wasn't. "What are you, twelve?" she asked. "Of course he's not an alien. If he was an alien, do you think I'd need to announce that I was looking for aliens? I'd have found them, obviously. No, he's not an alien. I hoped he was an alien, or something else out of the ordinary, when he transferred here late in the school year, but it turned out that he was just an ordinary guy."

"Oh," Kodaka said. He was oddly conscious of the fact that this was probably more words than Suzumiya had said to anybody since the school year began. "Then ... why are you still dating him?" He wasn't sure where the question had come from.

"The sex is adequate," she explained, looking away.

"Oh," Kodaka said. Now this was territory he absolutely positively definitely did not want to explore. There was no option except to jerk the conversation onto the rails he'd wanted to follow in the first place. "Actually, what I'd heard is that you've joined a lot of clubs, and -"

"They all suck," she said. "I tried the mystery research club, and they actually ran away from the chance to investigate some of the attacks last year. I tried one of the paranormal research clubs, and they turned out to be a bunch of occult freaks and perverts. I mean, I'm not bothered by that sort of thing, but that's not what I'm after. All the clubs in this place suck. I hoped things would get better when I got to high school, but they haven't."

"Oh," Kodaka said, bidding his hopes for useful intelligence a fond adieu. "Well, sorry to hear that. I guess the best option would be to make your own, then, for the sort of thing that you are after." It was almost an afterthought, uttered just before the rest of the class made their way in, and he turned to face the front, glad the awkward conversation was over.

And so not seeing the way that Suzumiya Haruhi was staring at the back of his head for the rest of the day.

His life grew more complicated around lunch.

"Hasegawa-san?" said a polite voice from his side.

Kodaka snapped his head up from where he'd been resting it against his desk. It couldn't be. But it was. A girl was talking to him without any provocation on his part. And not just a girl. But the girl. Asakura Ryoko, the incredibly popular, beautiful girl who'd been the class' majority pick for class rep. And she was smiling.

Okay, that last bit wasn't all that impossible, since she always seemed to be smiling. He'd heard that she'd had a solemn look on her face once, but he hadn't really been paying attention on that occasion.

But compounding the implausibility, she wasn't alone. Standing just behind her were those two girls, a blonde - Momioka, he thought - and her petite, pony-tailed glasses-girl friend - Sawaka? No, Sawada. And they were smiling at him, too. What was going on here? Had he been selected for some sort of human sacrifice?

"I heard from Sawada-san that you were having a conversation, earlier, with Suzumiya-san," Asakura said. "Is that right?"

No, no, it was worse than a human sacrifice! "Ah, well, sort of," he said, glancing behind him. Of course Haruhi wasn't there, having departed as soon as the lunch bell rang, no doubt engaged in some strange errand. They probably wouldn't have approached him if she was there. Curse you, Haruhi!

"She never talks to anybody!" Momioka said, which probably didn't need to be said, since everyone present was well aware of that. "I guess being a Yankee must give you a lot of nerve!"

Now, that, Kodaka decided with a look at her hair, only slightly darker than his own, was distinctly unfair. Before he could protest that he wasn't a Yankee, or say anything in his own defense, though, Asakura was talking again.

"Well, however you managed to do it, you managed to have a civil conversation with Suzumiya-san. I would really appreciate it if you could keep doing that, so that she'll have at least one friendly associate in class. I think that would be a good step in helping to turn her into a happy classmate."

Kodaka just stared. What the hell? How was associating with him supposed to do that?

"Which would be great!" enthused Sawada.

"'Cause she's hot!" added Momioka, smile taking on an edge.

Now he blinked, as he tried to understand why another girl was describing Haruhi as 'hot'. Beautiful, he could see anyone saying, but 'hot'? "Ah, well," he temporized. "I'll s-see what I can do." It wasn't like he could refuse a polite request from the class representative, was it?

"Thank you so much," Asakura said, smiling. "Until then, if we ever need to get a message to Suzumiya-san, we'll pass it through you, all right?"

Apparently, he'd not only become Suzumiya's sponsor in Friendless Jerks Anonymous, he was also her manager. "Right," he temporized. "Um, excuse me, I need to, um, excuse me," he finished weakly as he stood up and edged his way out of the room.

Shaking his head as he walked down the hallway towards the washroom, he mused that at least things couldn't get any screwier than they already had.

And then someone grabbed him by his tie and started dragging him towards the stairwell.

It was a moment before he realized who was dragging him, and another moment in which he was too baffled by the sheer strength of the small girl who was doing it to offer any comment. Then there was the moment of sheer horror in which he was being pulled up the stairs and unable to draw breath because the tie was pulling tight around his throat like a noose. She finally came to a halt in front of the landing's window, letting go of his tie and whirling around to shove a piece of paper in his face.

"I did it!" proclaimed Mikazuki, with a snarling smile of triumph.

Kodaka was desperately loosening the tie and taking deep breaths, so he couldn't immediately respond. When he did, he naturally came back with a wheezed, "What?"

"I did it," she repeated, perhaps a little less savagely but a bit more smugly. "I went down to the administration and established a new club." She emphasized this by shaking the paper she was still holding up.

He blinked and took a slightly longer look at the paper, which was, he now saw, emblazoned with the school's logo and a header reading "Club Registration Form". Looking a bit further down, he read the new club's name.

"The Neighbors Club?" he read aloud.

"In the spirit of Christian fellowship, we shall strive to be good neighbors to each other, growing closer to each other each and every day," she recited the club's statement of purpose, written just below the name.

"I can read, you know," he told her.

"I wasn't sure."

Swallowing that not-terribly-subtle burn, Kodaka looked from her face to the sheet. "Christian fellowship?"

"What?" she asked. "They're rebuilding that big-ass church, aren't they? Plenty of nuns all over the place. Christianity is clearly big here. Plus, the administration wouldn't want to seem like they were restricting our freedom of religion."

The sheer naked cynicism nearly overwhelmed him, and he let out a long breath. "Well," he said at last. "You've clearly thought of everything. I hope you and your fellow good neighbors have lots of fun together."

"You're joining," she said.

"... I'm what now?"

"You're joining," she repeated. "It was your idea, after all, so I put you down as one of the charter members." She pointed out his name under the list of members, consisting of three names, one of which was Mikazuki's own.

He stared. "You can't do that."

"No, it was easy, see?" She pointed out his name again. And mimed writing it.

He struggled to find something to say to that, something that expressed his objection. But the words would not come. Staring at the list, all he could say was, "And, and who's this person?"

"Last member of the Literature Study Club. I talked her into letting us use her club's room for meetings, so of course she's joining too. Her club's going to be disbanded when they review things and find out it has only one member, after all. You've got to have at least five, you know."

"And you've got three -"

"We've got three. For now," she corrected. "We'll get others."

"Okay, no. I'm not -"

"You said you wanted to join a club, right?" Minazuki said, just a bit sharply. "So you could make friends. So here's a club specifically for the purpose of making friends. What is the problem, here?"

"Well, I don't know, maybe I could -"

"Nope."

"I haven't even said what I was going to do," Kodaka growled.

"You're going to talk about making your own club, right? Sorry, nothing doing. The secretary told me that the school allows for a limited number of non-specific clubs, like this one, every year. And guess who's got two thumbs and filled the last available berth?" She pointed at herself with both thumbs. "This gal."

Suzumiya Haruhi stormed out of the administration's offices swearing like a sailor. As this was not a terribly uncommon occurrence, all that transpired was that one of the secretaries made a discrete phone call once she was out of hearing range.

Sensing the certainty of his defeat, Kodaka sighed. "Okay. Fine. I'll go along with this ... Neighbor's Club." He looked at the sheet again. "You even found a faculty advisor, too. Is this guy a foreigner?"

"Negi-sensei? Yeah, I think he's from Wales or something."

Huh. He had the vague notion that Wales was right beside England. That was interesting. "Well, I guess we've got a club, now, Mikazuki -"

"It's Yozora, Kodaka," she said.

He blinked. Not only did she use his personal name, she was insisting that he use hers? That was ... odd. But then, he was coming to realize that this was a very odd girl.

Be that as it may, he supposed that he shouldn't be completely surprised that she insisted on showing him the room that she'd found for this club, immediately. While initially grateful that she allowed him to walk at his own pace rather than be dragged like he had been before, Kodaka started to get nervous once he realized that the club room was (a) not in the same building as their classroom and (b) not in a building in the same general area as the building in which their classroom was held.

"Um ... you know, maybe we should wait until after class to go there," he said as they walked briskly across the campus.

"Don't be ridiculous," Mi- Yozora said, without looking back at him. "We need to claim the classroom quickly in case the Literature Club realizes what we're doing and acts like a bunch of dogs in the manger by reforming."

"Dogs in the -" He set that aside for the moment. "But, we might be late getting back to class?"

"So?" she said, again without a backward glance.

"We'll get in trouble," he said. "People already think I'm a delinquent, and -"

"Don't be silly," she said, holding up a hand as though to wave off his concerns. "You're going to your club, right? You can't be a delinquent if you're going to your club."

Kodaka was fairly sure that wasn't how it worked. But they finally arrived at the building in question, an older, semi-abandoned one that wasn't actually too terribly far from the one where they had class. If they hurried, they'd probably be back before bell. Probably.

Entering, they headed up the stairs to the second floor, and then Yozora threw open one of the doors. "Behold!" she proclaimed.

Kodaka beheld. Specifically, he beheld a rather small room with a table, some chairs, some shelves with books on them set against one of the walls and a coat rack on the other, and a petite girl seated at the tables staring at a computer screen while wearing a set of headphones.

"Nice and cozy, don't you think?" Yozora said, strolling in.

"Is that -"

"Ah, right. Member number three. Hey, Yuki," she said, waving at the girl.

Said girl made no response. This was perhaps to be expected, given her complete immersion in whatever it was she was doing on the computer. With a faint bit of curiousity, Kodaka glanced over her shoulder and discovered that it was some sort of fantasy role-playing game. Lacking interest in the subject, he turned back to Yozora. "Yes, very quaint," he said. "Now let's get back to class."

"What's the rush?" she asked.

"... the rush is a complete lack of interest in getting lectured about cutting class."

"Eh, it'll happen whether you're interested or not," she said dismissively. "Anyway, first I want to show you something." She proceeded to start opening her uniform jacket.

"Oh, hey, wait a minute," Kodaka said, backing away.

"What?" Yozora asked, looking genuinely perplexed as she pulled a piece of paper out of the jacket's inside pocket, then unfolded and held it up for him to see. "I made a photocopy and put it up on the school bulletin board."

What small poise he'd managed to regain instantly fled as he stared at the childish drawing of ... a large number of people (and, um, not-people) holding what looked like mushrooms - with little arms and legs - and smiling broadly under a rising sun which was also smiling and holding a mushroom. With writing underneath.

"What the crap is this?" he asked.

"It's our recruiting poster," she said. In response to his wordless gaze of disbelief, she elaborated. "I decided to draw that song, you know? When I'm a third grader I'll make a hundred friends and we'll eat onigiri on Mt. Fuji?"

"That's supposed to be onigiri?" he asked. "Why did you give it arms and legs?"

"Because it's cute," Yozora replied, clearly starting to sound exasperated.

"Okay, setting that lunacy aside -"

"Hey, lunacy?"

"What's with this message? It doesn't say anything about what this club is supposed to do. It's just ... I'm not even sure what to call it."

"Read it diagonally," she said, sounding cross.

He did so. "... who the hell is going to notice this?"

"Anyone who does notice it is going to be just the sort of person we want in this club!" Yozora proclaimed.

The door, which they'd closed behind them, swung open once more. "Recruiting friends?" said a voice.

Standing there, breathing rather heavily in the fashion of one who has run a marathon while radiating almost incandescent fury, was Suzumiya Haruhi. Her eyes didn't so much wander around the room as dart from place to place, finally settling on Yozora.

"Recruiting friends?" she repeated.

"That's right," Yozora said tightly. "You wanna make something of it?"

From the look on Suzumiya's face, it seemed fairly clear that she did. But she drew in one more deep breath, and regarded her calmly. "I want to join."

"Rejected," Yozora said without hesitation. "Kodaka, would you kindly get rid of this wench?"

"What did you just call me?"

Right at the moment, Kodaka couldn't imagine anywhere he wanted to be less than right here. And that wasn't easy, because he could imagine a lot of very unpleasant situations. "Uh, Yozora," he said. "Didn't you say that anyone who could figure out the hidden message was someone you'd want in the club?"

"I say lots of things," Yozora replied. "She doesn't count."

"Why not?" Kodaka and Suzumiya asked in rough synchrony, though using very different tones.

"Because of th- the way that she's obviously up to something!" Yozora exclaimed, somehow changing course mid-way through the sentence. She glared at Haruhi. "You are obviously up to something, wench!"

"You did it again," Suzumiya said, more amazed than anything else. "What do you mean I'm up to something?" she asked a heartbeat later.

"You're up to something!" Yozora repeated, just a bit angrily.

"Repetition is not explanation!" Suzumiya answered just as angrily.

Yozora made a few false starts, before she finally pointed a finger at the other girl. "You said on our first day that you don't have any interest in ordinary people."

"Yes, that's right," Suzumiya agreed.

"Well, there you go, then. This is a club that's all about becoming friends with ordinary people, so you wouldn't have any interest in it!"

"Oh yeah?" Suzumiya sneered. "You really think ordinary people are gonna figure out that daft secret message?"

"She has a point there," Kodaka observed.

"Don't encourage the wench!" Yozora yelled at him. Then back to Haruhi. "So anyway, you are obviously scheming to come in here, take over our friendly association of friendship and, within a couple of weeks, turn it into something weird like a group to look for aliens and espers and time travellers and, and whatever that other thing you were looking for was -"

"Sliders," Kodaka supplied.

"Don't encourage her!" Suzumiya yelled at him. Then back to Yozora. "You are a paranoid little girl, you know that? I would never even consider what you're suggesting." (Which was true. She'd had a much more long-term strategy in mind, taking most of a month rather than a couple of weeks. Clearly she was going to have to draw it out even longer to avoid attention.)

"Sheah, right," Yozora sneered. "Anyway. As president for life of the Neighbors Club -"

"You're what now?" Kodaka interjected.

And was completely ignored. "- I am officially rejecting your petition for membership."

"Objection!" Suzumiya cried, holding up a swirly tipped finger. "School regulations officially state that the officers of a club may not unilaterally reject any petition for membership without the consent of a simple majority of the existing club membership!"

"You actually read the school regulations?" Yozora asked, jaw dropped.

"I have a lot of spare time!" Suzumiya snapped.

"Well, fine," Yozora growled after a moment. "Hand poll. Let those who wish to accept the petition for membership of this wench raise their hands." She proceeded to glare murderously at Kodaka.

Kodaka flinched beneath the stress of her regard. The last thing he wanted to do was raise his hand under these circumstances. And come to that, didn't she already have a boyfriend? What did she need with more friends? So really, the smart thing to do would be to keep his hand lowered.

And yet.

He remembered how Asakura had asked him to do what he could to help Haruhi, and the warmth of the girl's smile. So, with a sigh of certain doom, he raised his hand.

"Uh huh," Yozora said, nodding, still glaring a look that promised death to all traitors. "How sweet. One for, one against, president breaks all ties, so -"

"You need to count again," said Suzumiya.

"What are you talking about, there's me, him and -" Yozora broke off. Slowly, she turned.

Nagato Yuki had not looked up from her computer. But her hand was raised all the same.

"She's wearing headphones," Yozora said dazedly. "How does she even know what we're talking about?"

"Two for, one against," Suzumiya said with an obvious smirk.

"Welcome to the Neighbor's club, Suzumiya -" Kodaka started to say.

"It's Haruhi," the girl interrupted. "If you're going to call her by just her name, you can do the same for me. Now about our recruitment efforts - the poster has its points, but I believe we can do better with something ... moe."

Haruhi, as she would insist on being called, did not have a chance to elaborate on what she meant by that. With the membership situation resolved, Kodaka's earlier anxieties about being late for class returned in full. "Well, now that that's settled, we should really get back to class!" he said, clapping his hands and smiling broadly.

"Wow, you have got to do something about that grimace," Haruhi said, staring at him.

"It looks like you're in incredible pain," Yozora said. "As though from a stick up your ass, for example."

The two girls did not share a glance, silently communicating the notion that though they despised each other, they were in total agreement about Kodaka's unpleasant smile. Some degrees of mutual loathing cannot be overcome by such agreements.

"I don't have a - look, I just don't want to get in trouble over this, okay?"

"Eh, that probably won't happen," Yozora said.

"To borrow a phrase from one of my colleagues, the sheer irresponsibility of our current crop of students is driving me to despair!" Nitta-sensei proclaimed, sitting at his desk and glaring angrily at the trio of students who were standing before it.

"I think Itoshiki-sensei actually usually says, 'has driven me to despair', said the young boy whom Kodaka had been informed was Negi-sensei, as he stood beside Nitta regarding them with a more sympathetic expression. Which would probably have been a bit comforting, if, you know, he hadn't been a child younger than any of them.

As Nitta-sensei continued lecturing them, he combined the rant with a few shots at Negi-sensei for continuing to fail to provide discipline to the students. Kodaka thought that was a bit unfair since the boy teacher hadn't even been present for any of this, not that anyone was consulting Kodaka for his opinion. Of course, if they had consulted him for his opinion, he would have been too busy giving Yozora heck for picking a little kid to be their faculty advisor, genius or not. What had that girl been thinking? He would really like to know!

There was no possibility of asking her, though, under the present circumstances. She was staring off into space, letting the lecture flow off her like water off a duck's back. He might have envied her that poise if he didn't suspect that it wasn't poise, but simply actual indifference.

On the other hand, Haruhi was staring rather intently at Negi-sensei. Kodaka found himself wondering what was up with that. Now that he realized that Negi-sensei was one and the same person with the boy teacher he'd heard rumors about, the one who somehow caused shotacon behavior in girls, he was starting to wonder just how depraved Haruhi might be.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, Nitta-sensei's lecture about The Horrors of Truancy, supported with ample reference to Students Of The Past who had Fallen From The Path and Their Dreadful Fates, reached what seemed like a logical conclusion. Negi-sensei smoothly swept in before another lecture could begin. "Yes, of course you're right, Nitta-sensei," he said. "I'm sure that these young people -"

Everyone stared at him.

He continued without pause. "- were simply overwhelmed by the excitement of forming a new club. I'll be sure to keep an eye on them to make sure that they don't do it again. In fact, I'll escort them to their classroom right now so that they don't miss any more of their class."

"Hrmph," said Nitta-sensei. "Well, then, I'll leave them in your care. Remember, Negi-kun, their behavior reflects on you."

"Yes, of course," Negi-sensei agreed, silently gesturing for the three students to head for the door, which they of course did. He followed them, bowing politely as he closed the door.

"Ooookay," he said when that was done. "While he's overdid that a bit, it's important to prioritize classroom time over -"

"Negi-sensei, are you an alien?"

The boy didn't even pause to stare bewilderedly at Haruhi. "Only a legal one."

"Huh?"

"An attempt at humor. No, Haruhi-san, I'm not an alien, a time traveller, an esper or a ... what's the other thing?"

"Slider," supplied Yozora.

"... well, I do enjoy waterslides, but I wouldn't say that I'm -"

"That's not ... ngh. Are you sure?" Haruhi pressed. "You wouldn't lie to an innocent girl, would you?"

"Of course not!" Negi assured her. "Is something the matter, Kodaka-san?" he asked the boy, who'd broken into coughing for some reason.

Kodaka waved for Negi to not worry about him, since he found it impossible to speak right then.

Despite what Yozora thought, her poster's hidden message wasn't that hard to figure out, at least for the generally highly educated populace of her high school. On its first day posted on the school's bulletin board, several students other than Haruhi paused to take a look at it, then tilted their head to see the message hidden in the diagonal.

The first was a rather beautiful young girl who paused to do so just briefly. She quietly sounded out the hidden words, and made a sad face. But a side glance told her that she was under observation by a trio of hostile glares, so Katsura Kotonoha quickly moved on before she had a chance to note the location of the Neighbors Club's headquarters. Something of a pity, really.

If she'd paused just a little longer, she'd have realized that those hostile glares - from a trio of girls who will not be introduced at this time - were not the only eyes on her. A rather more sympathetic pair were also following every step she took, every move she made, and had definitely noted her pause. Curious, Itou Makoto paused to look at the poster she'd examined, and tilted his head as she'd done as well.

He didn't see it, though. After a moment, he shook his head and continued his way out of school.

But his own pause had been noted, and in what might be considered something of a domino effect, the person who'd noted it paused as well, tilted his head. And did see the message. But Yuuki Rito blinked in confusion. Despite his awkwardness and occasional shyness, he'd never had any difficulty making friends. He was aware that some of them might not be terribly good influences on him, but he'd never lacked for friends. With a shrug, he headed towards the lockers to change into his shoes, and then towards something he'd been meaning to do for a long time.

The domino effect continued as a petite red-haired girl who'd seen Rito taking a look at the poster sauntered up to it herself. She'd exchanged a grand total of five sentences with this boy who was apparently her cousin, and didn't honestly think much of him. But if he'd found something interesting, she was curious enough to wonder what it might be. And so she tilted her head as well.

A smirk crossed her face, and Yuuki Nao shook her head. People who had the misfortune of not being her never ceased to amuse her. She sauntered away from the poster, but on an impulse - for she always obeyed her impulses - she fished her rather rulebreaking cellphone out of her vest pocket, and lifted it to her ear after hitting one of its speed dials. "Hey, Natsuki," she said. "Wanna go out tonight and beat people up? ... Great!"

Friendship takes many forms.

That seemed to be the end of the dominos. The next person to give the poster a more than casual glance did so a few moments after Nao passed by. It was really more of a double take than anything else. Well, actually, there's no way that it can be considered anything other than a rather exaggerated double take, as the young woman in question first gave it the aforementioned casual glance as she was passing it while accompanied by her two friends, then looked away.

Then her eyes widened and, just as she was lifting her foot to take another step forward, her head twisted back to stare widely at the poster again, freezing in this extremely awkward and unbalanced position. The outcome was, of course, inevitable. She pitched forward and landed flat on her face in the hallway.

Of the two girls accompanying her, one promptly began to laugh her head off, to the appalled stare of the second. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Haruna-chan, but you've got to admit that's funny," said Tsuruya THIS NAME HAS BEEN CENSORED IN YOUR OWN INTEREST.

I hate it when that happens.

"It's not that funny," said Saotome Haruna, shaking her head, a bit hypocritically since, if we're being honest, she found it just as amusing as Tsuruya. She did help her friend up, asking, "Are you okay, Mikuru-san?"

"Ah," said Asahina Mikuru, blushing prettily. "Yes, yes, I am. I just saw something very confusing, that's all."

They looked where she'd looked, saw nothing terribly confusing, and returned skeptical and amused glances to Mikuru.

"It's not there, now," she offered feebly.

"Ahhh," they chorused.

Away they went.

Later. Much later.

He stood before the window, looking down on the world both figuratively and literally, watching the lights of evening come up, occasionally allowing his eyes to stray over to the World Tree and a few other points of interest, such as a certain haunted-looking mansion on the city limits, barely visible from this dormitory tower. He had long been aware of the powers at work in this academy, but since his own interests in such matters were largely specialized, he'd never paid them much mind.

But things changed. He smiled thinly. Though he himself had not changed in any real sense since the early eighties, he was not fool enough to deny that things did change. He supposed that becoming richer and richer with each passing day was a change, but it wasn't a dramatic one, the sort of changes that had brought him here.

Or specifically, the opportunities they presented.

The noise from the bed was a bit distracting, but he kept his eyes and his mind on the specifics of his plan. The distraction of his cell phone ringing, on the other hand, was one that he couldn't ignore. He checked the number, and was somewhat surprised. But on a moment's reflection, considering the success of phase one of his plan, he supposed that he shouldn't be.

"Good evening, Makoto," he said as he took the call.

"What are you doing?" the boy's voice snapped on the other end.

"At the moment, I'm considering certain business opportunities that have presented themselves," he answered, far more politely than he'd just been addressed. "Is something the matter?"

"Mom called," the boy said. "She said that you just up and dropped Itaru with her. Why did you do that?"

"... are you unhappy that your sister and your mother are being reunited?" he asked, feigning confusion. "I don't understand why you'd get upset about this. It's not like you'll be kicked out of your room, or anything. You're at the boy's dorm at your school, aren't you?"

"That's not the - you're up to something."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," he admitted, smiling again. "As I said, I'm making some business moves that require my undivided attention, so I don't have time to look after my daughter at the moment. So I've returned Itaru to your mother. It's not that complicated." That was a lie, of course.

"... you're up to something," the boy repeated.

"I admitted that," he replied. "Was there something else?"

"... no."

"All right then. How's your love life?"

"... I'm not about to discuss it with -"

"If you can't talk about these things with your own father, I really hope you have some good friends," he said. "Well, just remember what I told you. Enjoy yourself. Don't ever let anyone tie you down. And remember -"

"- someday you'll come to steal any cute girlfriends I get away from me," Makoto recited the words he'd said to him, the last time they'd spoken, in a weary tone.

"And someday might be sooner than you'd think," he added. "Later, kiddo." He hung up before the boy could respond to that, then turned the phone off so that he couldn't be interrupted.

Just in time, as it happened, because the sounds from the bed had turned into coherent words. "I think she's ready," said the older of the two women there, her words a bit slurred by the juices she'd been drinking.

He turned with a smile to regard her, crouched between the legs of the adorably young-looking girl whose hands were firmly tied to the headboard of the bed on which she was lying, as she trembled in what was doubtless a heady mix of arousal and horror. Arousal was inevitable when someone performed cunnilingus with skill. Horror was inevitable when that person was one's mother.

"Well done, Mai-chan," he complimented her as he approached them, skinning off the boxers which were his only clothes, aside from his amulet. "Are you ready, Setsuna-chan?"

"W-who are you?" she gasped, eyes helplessly drawn from his mustachioed face down to the thing between his legs. It was, he supposed, the first time she'd ever seen one. Should have been more thorough, Shun, he thought, smile widening.

"You can call me daddy," he told her as he settled between her legs, her mother holding them open for him. "Or Tomaru. As long as you call it out frequently," he added, shoving himself into her.

She did, eventually. He supposed that he could have told her to call him grandpa, since he was the father of both her mother and her father (as well as her maternal grandmother) but that made him feel so old. And the last thing he wanted, especially as he fucked yet another one of his cute little girls, was to feel old.

If this worked, he'd never feel that way, ever ...

Elsewhere that evening in Mahora, in the open doorway of one of the hangars formerly used by the now-disbanded aviation club, a pair of men in black suits were standing with a third, rather petite, hooded figure in an orange jumpsuit. The older of the two men touched an earpiece. "We have confirmation that they're inbound," he said to his colleague. "When they arrive, don't say anything, don't take offense to anything they say, don't react." His eyes turned to the figure standing between them. "This is your last chance. We can offer you asylum -"

The figure's hooded head rocked back and forth, just once.

"Then I'm genuinely sorry, but you're leaving us with no options but to turn you over -"

Whatever else the man might have said was lost beneath the whining sound produced by the engines of the vehicle which now descended towards the hangar doors. It resembled, if anything, a stealth bomber, though such vehicles couldn't maneuver as this one did, nor did their landing gear flow like liquid metal from the bottom of the hull moments before it settled down. In the exact same way, a hatch appeared on the hull, and a ramp descended.

Down came a pair of men, slightly larger than the two men below, dressed in suits chosen as though to parody them - though allowing for their tails to swing freely behind them.

"Remove the hood," said the foremost of the two new arrivals.

Wordlessly, the senior agent did so. Pink hair flowed freely down the small girl's back as she looked with calm defiance towards the men with tails.

"Your highness," the foremost said, with a slight bow that conveyed no real sense of deference. "We will be taking you home now. Do you wish us to annihilate your captors and all who know them?"

The senior agent saw his companion's breath catch at that, and he allowed himself a slight frown. That one won't last long in this business.

After a moment, she spoke. "They have done their duty, as they saw it. Let no harm come to them."

"As you wish." With a gesture, he beckoned towards the hatchway.

With a sigh, the girl started walking in that direction ... then paused, to look back at the agents. "Agent Coulson," she said. "Have you heard of a book called Paradise Lost?"

"It's a fairly famous one. Your highness," he added, as an afterthought, when he saw a slight tension in the arms of one of the emissaries.

"'Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven,'" she quoted.

"I think I see your point," he replied. Then, in her own language, he added, "May you find all you seek."

She smiled at him. "I hope so," she said in his, and walked up into the ship, followed closely by the two emissaries.

"I would bathe," she said, as the door closed behind them. Clever agent, she thought. "I see your point." When speaking of lines written by a blind man, spoken by the master of lies. You do your master proud. I hope I will not cause you any trouble, clever agent.

But it is far better neither to reign nor to serve, in neither heaven nor hell, but to fly freely in the world that lies between. And I will.

NEXT: Lala.