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"Congratulations on another successful mission," Koizumi said giving me that plastic smile of his.

"Yeah yeah, are we done for today?" I said impatiently. I was tired and sweaty; if I had to deal with any more ESPer-related business today, I would go on a rampage.

We, that is Akane and I, had arrived back from the 37th Egyptian subsection. Now, we were in Koizumi's private office back in good old Tokyo. Akane after giving a salute, abandoned all self-discipline and sprawled on a chair basking in the much needed air conditioning.

"Not quite," Koizumi said. Turning his head to Akane he gave a nod, "You're dismissed Sergeant."

Hmm…he wanted to talk about private matters then. Akane immediately stood up, saluted once more, and then proceeded to leave the room.

As the doors hissed shut, Koizumi resumed speaking. "Good agent you have there."

"I didn't need your opinion to figure that out," I replied. But he was right, Akane Yagami was a good partner. Although ditzy most of the time, she knew the responsibilities that she had to uphold and performed her duties accordingly.

"Alright then let me get to the main point," Koizumi said standing up. He walked over to window with his back turned towards me. "We received some top secret material today. One of our agents acquired some vital information about the time travelers' future plans. However, due to the complexity of the situation, the rest of the C.C. board members and myself don't know how we should act."

I crossed my arms. "And you want me to help give you some advice or something?"

"Of course!" Koizumi said spreading his arms. I frowned, I always hated when he used his book-standard persuasion techniques on me. "I value what you say very highly. Even back when we played around because of Haruhi's whims."

The fact that he could say Haruhi's name out loud so easily; that was another thing about him that I hated.

"Alright, so what's this top secret information?" I asked.

Koizumi sat back down. "Apparently, the time travelers have developed a new invention."

I snorted, "And that's supposed to be news? They're from the future, of course, they've got all sorts of advanced futuristic crap."

That's how the time travelers kept their edge. Time traveling around only gave them a certain advantage in terms of knowing what would happen with engaging with us. Even the aliens were able to transmit information between time periods. Only by using their futuristic weaponry and other devices could time travelers actually fight on par with us.

"This isn't one of their usual gadgets. It's something that we really need to worry about." Koizumi opened a drawer from his large mahogany desk and pulled out a manila folder filled with several papers. He slid the folder towards me.

I grabbed it and took a look at the name written in large red letters across the folder.

"Project G?"

"Yes, a device that could potentially wipe out the entire population of aliens and ESPers from Earth."

I gave a chuckle at the implausibility of the idea and opened the folder up. The first page consisted of a picture of a large black sphere about four feet in diameter. I flipped to the next page, which contained tiny notes about part functions. Flipping, I could see the rest of the pages were the same.

I closed the folder and set it down. "So what exactly is this?"

"Didn't you read it?" Koizumi asked raising an eyebrow. He gave a big show of being shocked beyond disbelief.

"Yeah, but I couldn't understand any of it!"

"Oh well, actually none of our scientists could understand it either."

Then how did you expect me to understand it!

"And that's why I'm assigning an infiltration mission concerning Project G to you, but I'll explain more about it to you tomorrow. For now, it's better that you go home and get some rest."

I was partially intrigued with this "Project G" business, but if I had to sort out my priorities, I would have to say a hot bath would be on the top of the list.

"Alrighty then!" I said. I stood up and headed out the door.

"Oh Kyon, one second," Koizumi said stopping me. I stopped midstep. "You haven't been contacted by Nagato-san or Asahina-san lately have you?"

I turned my head black and gave him a glare.

Koizumi laughed, "Kyon-kun, you're scaring me! I retract my question. Of course, you haven't seen them. Not since the incident four years ago anyhow."

He should've known better than to bring that up. "May I leave?" I said clenching my teeth. I had to hold my anger.

"Yes, have a good night!" Koizumi said with that slimy smile of his.

I left the room and let out a breath of frustration.

"Something wrong, sempai?"

I nearly jumped. Akane was leaning against the tan brick walls right outside Koizumi's office. I clutched at my heart and started resuming breathing.

"What are you still doing here?" I asked her.

The girl danced over towards me and clutched at my right arm. I tried shaking her off since there were other ESPer agents walking along the corridor and the situation was downright embarrassing, but I couldn't get her off me. "You're tired," Akane grinned cheekily pressing her body against mine, "You're in no condition to cook so that's why I'm going to your place to make you some dinner."

"I'm your superior!" I said indignantly.

Akane tapped her watch, "Not after work hours you aren't."

I took a look at Akane. She was cute no doubt about it. With her short blonde hair, uncommonly pretty blue eyes, and slender body, she was admired by plenty of male ESPer agents. Any sane man would never turn down a home-cooked meal offer from her, however, I had to reinforce the difference between work and personal relationships.

"Not tonight, Sergeant, I'm planning on sleeping as soon as I get back home. Besides, you should really ask me later when you grow a pair of decent tatas."

In a split second, I felt myself getting punched in the face.

"Kyon! You idiot, idiot, idiot!" Akane shouted as she covered up her chest and ran down the hallway comically crying.

I wasn't concerned about her much, if she was still sore about it tomorrow, I would make it up to her. However, right now all I wanted to do was to get my hot bath and then some decent sleep.

Since I was one of the A-ranked ESPers, I got a very large salary. It was so much that I didn't know what do with all of it. I didn't want many things especially now that the novelty of being wealthy had worn off. I had a penthouse on the eastside of Tokyo, drove a Nissan GT-R, had a large 70-inch flat screen television in my living room, and all the video games a teenage guy could want. This may come off as me being a braggart asshole, but the thing was that I wasn't very happy with my life even with my lifestyle.

All too often I wished that I could live those days again being in the SOS Brigade.

When I arrived home, I ran to my bathroom stripping off my clothes down the hallway. I turned on the hot water to my tub and jumped in without waiting for the tub to fill up.

Damn, I was tired.

The memory of when I first met Akane Yagami came to my mind. It was maybe a little more than a year ago. I was one of her evaluators and got to read her profile: a seventeen-year old girl that was half-Japanese and half-European who just started getting her ESPer powers, which stood out since most of the European ESPers who did international work in the former Asian territories worked in China. Her family was part of the migration when the aliens took over Europe. She was a lot quieter back when she first started, but Akane grew to be very easy and comfortable with everyone.

That wasn't to say that Akane was my exclusive partner on my ESPer missions, but we did handle a lot of cases together.

My thoughts drifted to this Project G business. Koizumi seemed to know a lot than he was telling me. For one thing, how did he know that this Project G weapon would only affect the aliens and ESPers of Earth and not harm any of the time travelers? It wasn't mentioned in the file he gave me, and he didn't elaborate any further on how the ESPer agent acquired the intel. But then again, it wasn't unusual for him to withhold information from me.

Then there was the matter of Haruhi. When the ESP military division was set up by Pangea, its primary goal was to find Haruhi Suzumiya and figure more about the incident, otherwise known as the apocalypse that wiped out five billion human beings.

Nowadays, it seemed that the ESP division was more concerned with fighting the aliens and time travelers rather than finding Haruhi. Most of the ESP agents that were new didn't give a crap about Haruhi since they could just follow orders and enjoy the perks of their job. The old ESPers, the Agency, that all knew who Haruhi really was, also didn't care, but for different reasons. Their ESP powers now manifested to such an extent that they could use their powers in the real world, and as an added bonus, they didn't have deal with giants or Haruhi's closed spaces anymore. ESPers right now were recognized by the Pangean world government and formed into the military division.

In other words, they were happy now that Haruhi was gone. I wasn't even sure if Koizumi was one of them.

As for me, I was one of the few, if not only, people that still actively searched for Haruhi.

I turned off the faucet and put a hot wet washcloth over my face.

Maybe I was crazy, but I felt that if I met Haruhi again, then everything would be able to go back to normal. But that was just wishful thinking.

I took off the washcloth and pressed a button on the side of my bathtub. A small plasma TV screen came down from the ceiling.

"And then the alien went 'gurgle gurgle'…which according to my translator means 'My name is Lum!'"

I turned the TV off just as the audience started laughing, and the screen retracted back into the ceiling. I hated television nowadays. The media just banked off the current situation; everything that was broadcasted somehow dealt with aliens, ESPers, and time travelers.

I sighed feeling that the bath had done all it could do for me. Getting up, I wiped myself off and wrapped a towel across my waist. I wasn't feeling very hungry so I probably would just go to bed. As soon as I got a few feet away from the bathroom, I felt something was wrong. I instinctively stopped in my tracks and then held left hand up, now holding a small ice dagger.

Click.

I felt several things simultaneously. First, there was the gun held against my temple. Second, there was a pair of voluptuous breasts being pressed against my back. Third, there was a soft tickle against my ear as my attacker whispered, "Hello Kyon-kun."

That was all I needed to clue me in on whom my attacker was.

It was the adult Mikuru Asahina.