A/n – I made up the names I couldn't find in canon – if they do exist somewhere, let me know and I'll edit.
Auld Lang Syne
Finally, Chiaki found himself in the library. He'd had to go into the more built-up part of town to reach it, through several scanners set to read iris scans and the microchip which lay on the back of his neck. To have access to the full archives, he'd have needed a military or government chip. Still, he saw no reason for the newspapers he wanted to be hidden. They were just local news stories from years ago.
The files stretched as far as the eye could see. Each newspaper was held on a microdisc no bigger than an inch across, but there were millions of them here.
Chiaki found the right area, then the cabinet containing the right decade. He keyed in the search terms -Makato Konno, Kousuke Tsuda. And the name of the painting - A Picture of White Plum and Camellia and Chrysanthemum.
That wasn't the original name of the painting, of course. No one knew what the artist had called it. It had been found in Japan, in the remains of a school that had been occupied by children sent from Germany during the Second World War.
The day after he'd seen Yasuo leap from the building, he's found a clipping, a printout from one of these files. He'd found it among Yasuo's things, left out as if he'd meant for him to find it.
The clipping had described the discovery of the painting, and the exhibition it was due to be part of. He'd determined to see it. Time travel was prohibited within recent time – allowing people to return to yesterday, or last year, or even fifty years before would put too much at risk. He'd have to go further. Well, this was far enough. And it was the only link he had to Yasuo, his brother.
He'd filled out all the necessary forms, struggling with the longer words, and the complicated question they asked. The government official he met with told him to come back in a few years. Children couldn't be trusted to leap, to conduct themselves properly in another time.
So, he'd gone back, the next year, and the next. It had taken five years before they'd finally given him permission. And then, unpractised as he was, he'd leapt a few months too far. And, with all that had happened, he'd never seen the painting.
That was okay; he had something else to hope for now. He'd lost Yasuo, but he'd found Kousuke and Makato. And surely one of them would be able to find a way for her to reach him?