Adaption and Bad News

Fortunately, by the time Haruhi returned, both Mikuru and Itsuki recovered enough to put on a show for her. After we finished at the club, and Haruhi returned home, we met at my apartment to discuss what had transpired. The first thing on the agenda was how long Mikuru device would take to fix. What she said on the matter was quite disturbing.

"Guys, the problem is that even if I do fix my device, it won't fix the problem. There are at least 300,000 people who can time travel. It's also VERY difficult to track down an exact time someone time traveled because the devices are personal, therefore any travels that happen on them can easily be erased evidence wise. If a person wanted to, they could easily travel back with it, and kill someone without anyone in command ever knowing better. This is why time travelers are screened so much for psychological problems, and frequently are fired if they enter any sort of romantic relationship because of the risk of something like this happening."

She briefly paused before continuing with, "I sadly do know whoever did this not only knows how to use the device, but knows how to quite well. This person not only broke my device, but also did it in such a way that it will take me months to repair it. They would've had to know how to break a very specific part with ease, not something most people know how to do. This would explain why they would know there wouldn't be any forensic evidence. Because time travelers are like adding an extra object to a slide, they aren't really there. This person could've freaking screwed Kyon's brains out and still wouldn't have left any forensic evidence. However, most people who time travel don't know that, therefore whoever this person was not only extremely talented in time travel, but was probably rather high rank in the time travel organization I come from."

I asked her, "Mikuru, how many women are there in your organization? My research of the case almost confirms the killer was female. Also, if what you're saying is correct, could it have been someone in command?"

She breathed in, then answered, "Yuki, there are at least 150,000 women in the organization. But, only those in command could've pulled this off. Of that number, only 10 are in command. Of those people, one of them is my future self, who is in command. 7 of those 10 people are either lesbians or have had their sexual organs removed so as to eliminate sexual impulses all together. The final three are me, and two other women that I have very little contact with. If one of them had a rather close relationship, they would've had a damn hard time hiding it."

I then asked, "Has anyone been fired recently for having a close relationship that would've been able to get such a device?"

She responded, "Impossible, everyone who is fired or resigns has their memory wiped to avoid these problems from occurring, not to mention having all their devices removed."

I then said, "Then this killer was clearly someone who was probably in command. I know you know about the more advanced details of time travel such as that only because of a mix of accident and your older self-telling you these details. The latter only happened because of incidents involving time travel that came, requiring more advanced knowledge. But, if this is all the case, then we can narrow down our list of suspects to three people."

Itsuki suddenly said, "This is assuming that Kyon didn't have some sort of homosexual fan that had a crush on him. Perhaps when Kyon rejected him, he got angry enough to kill Kyon. Mikuru, is there any male in command with such sexual orientation?"

Mikuru answered, "No, mainly because males are looked at even more closely than women when it comes to sex drive. Of the 10 males in command, 8 of them have had their sexual organs removed. The final two are both married to women, and haven't had a single sex problem in all of there years in command. If they had any marriage problems at all, they would've been immediately fired. Therefore, the chances of anyone in command being homosexual are practically zero. Not only that, of all the other males in the organization, only three are homosexual. Two of those three have had their sexual organs removed. The only one who hasn't has a stable boyfriend and more importantly, wouldn't have been able to carry this out from lack of knowledge."

I then asked, "Could someone perhaps have convinced someone within command to give them the knowledge required to carry out such an attack?"

Mikuru replied, "No, command barely ever even communicates with anyone in the lower ranks. When they do, they have to go through mountains of paper work to say a single thing, and whatever they say is open for all to hear. When the older me talked to me, she had to go through a week of paperwork and everything she said had been recorded by someone nearby to make sure that she only said what was allowed. Speaking of which, she is right now on vacation in a location where she is watched by thousands of cameras in everything she does. She wouldn't have had been able to kill someone judging by everyone watching."

I asked, "Mikuru, how strong are these three women? I also know the killer would've required massive physical strength to pull off this attack. I know that the older you couldn't have because she doesn't have the physical strength to pull of this attack."

She replied, "Wrong, the older me could fracture a man's skull if she was enraged like this person clearly was. The other two though are equally capable of doing this attack. Time travelers are usually required to be extremely physically fit; I was just an exception when I was younger. All three of them could've easily delivered that punching power to Kyon's body if they were enraged enough. However, the older me am already crossed out because of the vacation she is currently on."

This put me in an awkward position. There were only three suspects, all of whom would probably be extremely difficult to question. Even if I could interrogate them, they probably wouldn't exactly be the most willing suspects. They've probably been trained to deal with interrogations, and similar incidents.

Mikuru, as if suspecting what I was thinking, said, "Yuki, if you're thinking what I think you are, yes, these three women will be very difficult to interrogate. The people in command are trained to with stand interrogation, and it would take lots of evidence to get them to sit for such an interrogation. Also, such an interrogation would've to be carried out by you because I doubt an interrogation by our organization would reveal anything, those in command know it too well. Also, if Kyon did date one of these women in the future, he would've had to be one of the best most charming men in existence, not likely to say the least. However, I can see him actually wanting to date one of these women. All three of them are extremely well endowed to say the least, and all three are also extremely fit, giving them an incredible amount of beauty. However, Kyon would have to be not only be rather attractive himself, he would have to be… appealing enough to justify these women not only deciding to have a close relationship with him, but also an incredibly sexual relationship with him on top of it judging by some things at the crime scene."

She briefly paused before continuing with, "These three women would have to be given significant reasons to put their careers and possibly even lives in danger for such a relationship. Not only that, how would Kyon have contacted these people? I'm banned from knowing what he does in the future, however I highly doubt he would've become part of the time travel organization. Not only that, even if Kyon somehow attracted these women enough to do all of this, why in the freaking world would he then hurt them emotionally enough for them to not only want to kill him, but travel to the past to practically eliminate him for existence?"

I replied, "Mikuru, who else could've killed Kyon? The person has to be a time traveler, there are too many signs pointing to it. As for the sexual relationship, why did these women choose not to have their organs removed? Why else would one keep them around besides to keep the potential for sexual pleasure and perhaps even children? Right now things are pointing to your older self actually, because who else among them would've known us well enough to know what would happen, and know that Haruhi is who she is?"

She responded, "The problem is if those women are suspects, all of them would've known about Haruhi, because all of them oversee this assignment. I perhaps have had the most contact with the older me, but all of them knew about Haruhi. As for knowing us well enough, I have to give an extremely detailed report to all of them. It's so detailed that they would've known Kyon as well as the rest of us. It's true, they are probably the only ones that could've done this, but how in the world would we prove it? Yes, they didn't have their organs removed, but that may be because they fear the elimination of said organs would modify their personality heavily in a negative way, therefore they have an excuse from the job to not undergo the surgery. More importantly, these women might want to retire one day, meaning that would want the ability to have sex, and perhaps have children once they do retire. There is little point in retiring if you can't enjoy sexual pleasure, which is why the ones that undergo the surgery usually work there until the day they die."

She paused briefly before continuing with, "It's true that no one else could've carried this out except someone in command, but this means that someone in command was somehow finding the time to have an extremely sexual relationship with Kyon. All three of the women have extremely tight work schedules. Where would've they found the time to meet Kyon?"

Suddenly, an idea sprung in my head, one that I couldn't ignore. I then said, "Mikuru, could they have maybe been time traveling in secret to have a relationship with Kyon in the past, therefore dodging the problems at the organization? They possibly do it constantly to relive stress; after all, if they time travel they would not need to worry about many of the traditional problems associated with sexual relationships."

This made Mikuru go quiet for a while. She eventually said, "Yuki, maybe. It's true that people in command can time travel without having to explain it to others. They could easily make it look like they're doing their job when they are really reliving themselves of work. They could also easily clean up any signs of it before returning, and in the past would leave no traces because of how time travel works. But, why would they choose Kyon? There are a practically infinite number of males to choose from in the past, so out of all of those males why choose Kyon? He isn't a super model or anything, and even among others in his peer group isn't distinctive to be picked for something like that. Also, to whomever they are screwing, they would probably appear to be a sexual fantasy. Not even the person they would have sex with would know that they are real, because they would disappear constantly and probably not gone on any sort of traditional date, so why would they ever get emotionally attached enough to the person they were with in the past to want to kill them? For them, it would probably be nothing more than a fling to relive stress. That also brings up why would they ever stay with one male, or why they would choose a high school student who isn't even legal yet."

I replied, "Women on average are more likely to want closer relationships. They want love and sex, not just sex, therefore would probably take things to a more emotional level. I've heard nothing about these women that would separate them from this average. As for the choice of Kyon, perhaps something about him in the reports made them like him. Besides, you and your older self are rather emotionally close to Kyon, whether you like to admit it or not. This brings up the possibility you were emotionally attached enough for this to occur, and you are physically attracted to Kyon too, whether you like to admit it or not. In fact, your older self would probably heavily enjoy such a relationship, and easily would be able to hide such things as sexual fantasies. The only question with that is what in the world Kyon did to cause you to want to kill him."

She blushed briefly before responding," Well… my future self isn't that interested in Kyon. While she does sometimes… fantasize about him she isn't interested in him that much. He's more of a harmless fantasy to her than anything else, especially since she doesn't date guys that young normally. Besides, I can't imagine what Kyon would do to get her pissed off enough to want to kill him, much less go to such massive risk to existence itself to do so."

She then suddenly went on saying, "Besides, the problem with this is whoever did time travel to do this has almost perfect cover. All three of the women are easily women that Kyon might have just fantasized about normally. My older self would especially have this cover considering his… heavy attraction to me. How would we differentiate between normal fantasies and what these women did?"

I responded, "We will look at official records of when they time travel, something they probably wouldn't hide. If they go to the same nights Kyon has a fantasy, which I know from analyzing his brain fluids, than we can safely assume they had sexual intercourse with him. We can further narrow it down by finding out the sexual preferences of these women, and then comparing them to the fantasy to see if it matches. This information can be gathered from them through interrogation that I can carry out through a special method of data manipulation I know. But, before all that Mikuru, you need to fix that device quickly."

Mikuru said, "But wait a minute, how come you couldn't have killed him? I know that you don't have sexual impulses or emotions period for that matter, but maybe you manipulated the data to make it look like a rage killing."

I responded, "Why would I kill Kyon? More importantly, I could do it much more easily and discreetly by now if I wanted to with data manipulation. I could make it look like he was killed by a bullet from a Yukuza member if I wanted to."

Itsuki then asked, "Well, what if perhaps someone stole a time travel device who happened to know the time travel rules from a different source, like perhaps forcing someone in command to tell them or knowing the science behind it rather well?"

Mikuru replied, "Impossible, the time travel devices are made once per person, and the equipment for making them is in a facility which would be harder to gain access to than any other facility on Earth because of how it's made. Besides, even if they did have one, they couldn't know those rules. The forcing the knowledge tactic couldn't work, the people in command have the combat training of Special Forces operatives and are almost superhuman when it comes to physical strength because of modifications done to them. They have to be better at unarmed combat than anyone in human history because they can't carry weapons, so the chances of someone forcing that kind of information out them are nil to impossible. Not to mention that they would never give that kind of information out to anyone. As for the science, we still don't understand why that happens; it was discovered by pure accident. Even if you were a scientist working for the organization you wouldn't be able to put to use the knowledge, because the scientists are guarded so closely that we probably know them better than their significant others or even themselves."

After pausing briefly, she said, "The command theory actually does make sense not only because they are the only ones with the means, but they would easily have enough strength to carry out these attacks. But it leaves the question of why in freaking hell kill him now? It would be so much easier to kill him when he was much younger. Although, the time quake does prevent them from going that early, but there is still plenty of time in which Kyon didn't know Haruhi and vice versa that they could've killed him. They are extremely good at controlling their emotions, they are trained heavily to do so and must prove their ability to do so if they want to keep their sexual organs. So what in the world could Kyon have done to piss them off so heavily to not only kill him with their bare hands, but also killing him in such a way that it's some sort of brutal public spectacle for us."

Then, I thought of another thread we hadn't thought of. "Mikuru, could've one of the women perhaps hated you enough to intentionally kill Kyon in this manner to upset you? If this is an emotional attack, it is quite effective, and may also explain the rage the person felt." I said.

Mikuru responded, "No, if someone in command hated me that much they would just fire me. That could perhaps be a factor in it, but I doubt that is the sole motive. If we are done here, I need to go home and fix that device. We clearly have a lot to sort out."

I said, "Yes Mikuru, we are done here. It's fortunate a weekend is coming up, because we will need to go to the future. Itsuki, I need you to distract Haruhi while we're gone. We may need to do something here without Haruhi knowing when we get back. In the meantime, we all what we need to, so we shall now disperse."

At that, we all left. I now had a somewhat workable theory on who killed Kyon. I had three suspects, all of them could've killed Kyon, and all of them could've been in his fantasies. They probably killed him for a combination of reasons, one of them being that he probably betrayed them somehow in the future, another being to get revenge against Mikuru for something, and finally, perhaps out of jealousy on a level of, "Only I get him," that seems to afflict many women. But, I will know nothing until Mikuru repairs her time travel device, and that probably won't be for awhile.