Chapter 2:

School passes rather quickly when you're preoccupied with thoughts. I held the letter in my hand as I walked to the clubroom. Before lunch ended, I had Nagato repeat to me what the message was exactly and scribbled it down, very crappily, in pencil. I spent the rest of class in an idle standby... the teachers didn't call on me, and as long as I looked like I was working, no one bothered me.

My trek to the clubroom was uneventful for the most part. The letter, in hand, kept me deep in thought up until I reached the door.

Then along came Haruhi.

I placed the letter in my pocket and started opening the clubroom door, just in time to see Haruhi skipping with joy from the far end of the hall. In one hand, a manilla envelope. I hoped there wasn't anything bad in there. In the other hand, a detention slip.

The hell? What did she do this time? I took a few steps towards her and called her name. "Haruhi?"

"KYON!" Haruhi screamed, rushing over to me. She waved the envelope in my face. "You won't believe what I have!"

"Why do you have a detention slip?" I questioned. Punishment usually upset Haruhi, and yet she was all smiles. That made the detention slip an even bigger worry.

"Oh, the principal and other administrators gave me detention for leaving school for the last three hours. But that's not important!" She exclaimed, handing me the envelope. When did you leave school?

I paused for a moment. The more important question, how did I not notice you were gone for the last three hours?

"Well don't just stand there! Open it!" She yelled. "Oh forget it." She snatched it from my hands, tucked it under her arm as if it were a textbook, and marched to the clubroom, promptly kicking the door open only to slam it in my face.

"It seems Suzumiya-san is rather excited about something." Koizumi said, appearing beside me. "Do you have any idea why?"

"She has something." I opened the door and walked in. Whatever was in that envelope couldn't be good.

"Where the hell is everyone?" Haruhi yelled impatiently. Nagato wasn't in her corner. Asahina-san wasn't here either. Koizumi and I just walked in. As if on cue, Nagato walked in, strode past the desks and sat in her corner.

"Okay, well... where's Mikuru?" Haruhi asked. "Aww, this is no fun! I can't reveal it if everyone isn't present!"

Reveal what? What do you have? I opened my mouth to ask just that only to be stopped by a knock on the door.

"Um?" Asahina-san stood in the doorway. "S-sorry I'm late. Tsuruya wanted me to carry some things to the Home Economics clubroom."

"Hm? Oh, alright then." Haruhi said. She motioned for Asahina to come in. The angelic beauty reluctantly walked in. "Everybody, your attention please!"

She climbed ontop of the rectangular table and smiled a thousand-watt smile. "Your gracious and ever-loving Brigade leader-" I snickered at that comment, receiving a death glare from Haruhi. "-will now present another token of appreciation to her fellow underlings, to reward you for your assistance in making this club an ever-growing presence in the occult community."

She opened the envelope and withdrew several slips of paper which I assumed to be tickets. "An all-expenses paid, weeklong stay at the tourist hotspot of Okinawa!"

My jaw hit the floor.

What sort of highway robbery did she commit to get those tickets? I quickly pulled her off the table, out into the hallway, and sternly hissed into her ear. "Haruhi, stealing is a felony!"

"How dare you accuse your Brigade leader of thieving! I would never stoop so low to such a thing!"

Really? Then tell me how we have a clubroom, four laptops, a computers with a hardline and router installed for internet access, a bunch of clothes, an electric teapot, electric heater, and two female members that were originally in other clubs?

She shrugged. "Most of those things were earned."

Your definition of 'earn' is completely different from the rest of the world's.

"Oh ye of little faith!" She said, rather loudly I might add. She took off her headphones and wore them around her neck. "I won these tickets fair and square."

"Doing what?" I shot her a skeptic look.

"One of the most popular radio stations in the world was hosting a giveaway!"

I gave her a blank stare I assumed she was talking about Tokyo's J-Wave radio station. Disregarding the fact that Japanese radio stations couldn't possibly be broadcasted to the whole world, how could she of all people have won? The fact that her walkman headphones could pick up such a radio station so away begged another question as well.

"They were holding a call-in giveaway. I was lucky number seven!" She said, beating her chest with a fist proudly.

I stared at her hand, still holding the pair of headphones. Wait a second, that's what you were doing this entire morning? Listening to the radio? You called them in the middle of class?

"It was the first time I'd won a sweepstakes like that... I have to admit that it's pretty unbelievable." Haruhi commented. "Anyways, I didn't steal these tickets!"

And with that, she burst into the clubroom. "We have lots of planning to do! Okinawa is such a huge tourist hotspot that there has to be some sort of strange, other-worldly stuff there! Our job as the SOS Brigade will be to try to locate as many strange things as possible. We leave the first week of summer!"

I shook my head in disbelief.


I asked Koizumi to stay after to discuss something. Haruhi left without so much as a word, and Nagato and Asahina-san soon after.

"Quite the turn of events, don't you think?" Koizumi smiled. "I'm surprised Suzumiya-san was able to win such a contest."

I'm just as surprised as you are.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" he asked, sipping a cup of tea. I handed him the letter and told him my two cents.

"Hmm..." he scratched his head. "Well, this is intriguing. I suppose the first thing you noticed was the strange fragments and word choice, right?" I nodded. He was dead on. "Some of these messages look cryptic, which is very unlike Nagato. Let's analyze these one by one, and look at the possible meanings behind them."

Brilliant plan. Why didn't I think of that?

"Synchronization..." He looked at the paper curiously. "Didn't Nagato say she herself limited her powers of synchronization last December?"

That sounded familiar. I slowly nodded my head.

"If that's the case, then let's theorize from a moment." Koizumi said, leaning back in his chair. He picked up a pencil and drew a line across the bottom of the paper and split it in halves with another line. "Nagato confirmed this letter to be from the future, yes?" I nodded. "Let's make the left side our current timeline, and the right side, the future." He wrote down 'Now' and 'Future' in their designated areas and circled the right side. "The future-Nagato must have uplifted her own self-imposed ban and attempted to synchronize with herself in the past. The reason she uplifted her ban must have been of critical importance. She must have tried to notify her past self of threatening events"

I grunted in agreement. Something had to have happened to one of us, or maybe perhaps all of us.

"However, due to some external factor, something has prevented her synchronization." He pointed at the dividing line with the pencil. "Perhaps it is the Integrated Data Sentient Entity restricting her, or maybe it's Haruhi's doing, we don't know. We do know, however, that it is only restricting Nagato."

I shot him a confused look.

"If Nagato's synchonization was blocked, it would be safe to assume that her other abilities were blocked as well." Koizumi reasoned. "However, we're in possession of a letter that came from the future."

He was right. Someone had to have delivered the letter. Whatever restricted Nagato had no effect on someone else. Someone with the ability to time-travel.

"The only logical explanation as to how we received it is-" "-Asahina-san placed it in my locker." I finished for him. I fished in my pocket for my cell phone.

"This letter doesn't forewarn us of how close the future timeline will be to us." Koizumi said.

"Already ahead of you." I dialed Asahina-san's phone number. Even if she peppers us with Classified Information, we'll still have some input from her end.

"Hello?"

"Asahina-san! Koizumi and I would like to request you return to the clubroom. It's related to Haruhi." I said. She took the bait.

"Oh, um... Alright, I'll be there shortly."

"Okay, see you then." Click!

I began to dial Nagato's number as well, only to have Koizumi snatch my phone. "What the hell are you doing? Give that back!" I glared at him, holding my hand out.

"We don't need to involve her." Koizumi said. "Rest assured, Nagato-san will have likely arrived at the same conclusions as us."

"She should still be here. We can tell her what course of action she can take." I argued. He shook his head.

"Suppose if the Integrated Data Sentient Entity was the one that prevented Nagato from delivering the message." Koizumi said. "Telling her our plans for her course of action in this timeline will alert them. The Entity will have preemptive measures put in place. She may be unable to do what we request."

... damn him and his logic.

"We may include her in the discussion, but we must not tell her what we think she should do." Koizumi said. "And because I'm very well aware of your behavior, I believe the best option we have is to leave her in the dark."

"Fine." I said. Planning all of this would without her seemed unfair. Her presence alone usually reinforces my own sanity. Guess I'll have to make do.

"Let's keep going. We can fill Asahina-san later." Koizumi handed me back my phone, which I pocketed, and readdressed the paper. "Memory extracted... this one is rather difficult."

Yeah, I'll say. "The question about this I want to address is 'whose memory?'"

"I agree." Koizumi nodded. "There are so many questions to be asked about this one. What does 'extraction' mean? Is it a process? What significance do these memories hold?"

This is giving me such a headache.

"Worst of all, we have absolutely no way of answering these questions without inquiring Nagato-san." Koizumi said. He drew a question mark next to it. "We'll have to speak with her at a later time. It'll be best if we gather up every question we want to ask instead of calling her every couple of minutes."

"Self-aware is uncharacteristic behavior." I said.

Why does that sound so... off?

"This makes me question the validity of these warnings." Koizumi said, reading my mind. "Nagato-san isn't one to make mistakes."

"Maybe she was in a hurry?" I suggested. It was a longshot. Under all other circumstances, I would've accepted it, but not when it came to Nagato.

"Perhaps." Koizumi didn't sound convinced. "This one seems pretty self-explanatory. We don't need to delve deeper into it. Next one?"

I groaned. "Sex orientation reversal."

"Once again, this brings the question of who is affected. As well as who did it." Koizumi said gingerly. I could see that this wasn't a topic either of us really wanted to discuss. "Nagato-san wouldn't do such a thing, since it's a more trivial characteristic of humans. Which means the perpetrator is Suzumiya-san."

"For the record, I'm straight." I muttered, facepalming. I certainly did not want to be the one affected, that's for sure.

"What made you want to share that?" Koizumi asked. I blinked.

"I dunno. Seemed like we should tell each other so we know what to expect."

Koizumi chuckled. "Are you perhaps, compensating for something?" You little bastard! "I'm only joking of course..."

Well what about you?

"What about me?"

What's your orientation? I told you, it only makes sense that you tell me.

"Hmm, what was the term Asahina-san used? 'Classified Information?'" He leaned forward, his face a little too close, finger on his lips. Forget I asked. Urgh, that just ruined my memory of when Asahina-san said that! I shoved him away. "If you must know, I prefer women. That's not to say that I discriminate of-"

"Moving on!" I said quickly, staring at the paper. That's incredibly ambiguous of you Koizumi... I think I may have lost a little respect for you. "Kyons."

I couldn't help but slap my forehead at the ridiculous nickname. "What could that mean?"

Koizumi smiled. "Well, for one it's written in English."

I stared at him. "Nagato said it like that. 'Kyons'." You honestly can't blame me. There isn't a way to make Kanji plural.

"I see. Well in the plural form, that means that there are multiple versions of you." He said succinctly.

What the hell does that mean?

"I don't know. Perhaps there is some sort of issue of time travel which causes there to be two of you in the same place at the same time?" Koizumi suggested. I sighed. Not more time-travel nonsense.

"There might be another meaning." Koizumi added. "Perhaps when Nagato said that, she meant the English possessive form. Which may indicate that an event occurred involving your belongings, body, mental state, physical ability, and/or characteristics."

I scratched my head in frustration. Everything was pretty easy to decipher except this.

"We won't know until it happens, I'm afraid." Koizumi said with a saddened smile. He added, "But at least we're armed with the knowledge and will be ready to react when the time comes." Just knowing that something bad was on the horizon made me feel worse.

Knock knock.

The door opened slightly, and an angel poked her head through the sliver. "I'm here... W-what's this about?"

I motioned for her to take a seat, and began the long task of filling her in.