2005, North Senior High School, Tokyo

I don't feel the need to write much more about my time within high school right now. Not only has my father now narrated the more significant parts within his own books, but in some ways I feel his perspective is more suited to those stories. I have been recursive and interfered with my own time-plane; the whole story cannot be told completely or in any sensible way from my perspective. I know that I am not completely informed about some issues, and at other times I have simply been unconscious.

We all suffered at the hands of Haruhi Suzumiya and spent more than a small amount of time on damage control and restoring stability to time, space and the universe itself. Suffice it to say that what with one thing and another, two years passed.

It was my final year of high school, and I had settled down into my location and social network. Though my only contact with home was through Nagato and Aunt Yuki's short periods of synchronisation, and the duration of my kidnapping at the hands of Fujiwara (and subsequent debriefing at the agency), I did not feel lonely or alone.

We had lived in a strange sort of truce alongside our rival dopplegangers, Sasaki, Tachibana, Suou and Fujiwara. At first Nagato had us all worried; we had our direct parallels with these rival agencies and agents, and we had butted heads over the methods of resolution during our first few altercations. But we had soon realised and agreed that in order to maintain a safe and workable middle-ground in our daily lives there had to be a truce. Keeping Suzumiya occupied and Kyon under observation stood in all of our best interests. We became very good at working professionally together to fabricate incidents, but there were always exceptions (like my being kidnapped, where they had been calling the shots) and conflicts (we learnt to never let Nagato and Suou engage in a direct data transfer) to keep us on our toes. We kept our contact and involvement with each other to a strict minimum, and everyone was happy with that.

So when Koizumi ducked into my classroom during recess one day asking for a private moment, I suffered and smiled and blushed through Tsuruya's teasing to sneak away with him into a secluded corner of the courtyard.

"Sasaki called last night." I could tell from the tension in his jaw and the way his fingers fidgeted nervously that this was anything but a routine contact between our two groups.

"Oh?"

"She has said... that all bets are off. All..." Koizumi shivered, his usually smiling face contorted as he pushed the words out, "She said that this is an end to our truce. She's going to call Kyon directly tonight and ask him out for a coffee. I think she's going to try to make him team up with them instead of us."

I frowned, torn between my duties and consoling a very shaken friend. I quickly checked my communication interface just in case I had any updates or notices from the agency. There was nothing. I lay a gently hand on Koizumi's shoulder, and smiled weakly.

"I assume you have already told Nagato."

He nodded. I bit my lip and scuffed my shoes against the ground.

"Well I'll check in with my superiors, but I'm not sure how much I can do, anymore. I've been warned that my extraction might come any day now. I might not even be allowed to graduate."

Koizumi sucked in a long breath and looked away from me, towards the smoggy sky.

"They aren't telling me anything, but something's up at the organisation, too. Lots of quiet and slowness... it's almost like they're so busy keeping secrets that they don't have the energy to fake normalcy. There have been coups and messes in the bureaucracy before, but they've always at least made the effort to pretend it's business as usual. Now, there's just... all these doors, closing in my face."

"Well we do know that it ends well for us, at least. Right? It can't be that bad."

It was a pretty bad idea, trying to console Koizumi when I was stressed and scared myself. It wasn't really all right. At some point something awful was going to happen to Kyon, and he was our friend now. I may have never had a father, but I did have Kyon. He was maybe more like... a brother or a cousin. Family, and one of the closest friends I had. I'd never truly integrated into the other schools I had attended. I had never had real friends. I was sad just thinking of returning to a future that didn't have any space for Kyon.

Koizumi gave me a look that left it quite clear he could see right through me. He forced a hollow smile onto his own face and shrugged. "Well, even if it is, it's out of our hands. Nagato said that even checking in with the IDSE and poking around in the data down here was useless to her. She's had some blocks applied remotely, and can't synchronise with any future selves. Or alter data here herself. So if something does happen, we can't..."

I gasped. "This... isn't good. Not good at all."

There wasn't much we could do. The bell rang, and we hurried back to our classrooms. I spent the whole afternoon at my desk trying to ping the agency, using specific and general and emergency codes to try and get through. I even tried Miss Miruku's personal phone number. No response. Just the same default message came back from them all, a pre-set phrase only sent out in times of severe danger and flux: Remain calm and take no action, we shall contact with mission updates soon. The only information I had from that was that it was not yet at the point of emergency recall.

We were shaken. Suzumiya and Kyon didn't show up to the clubroom, and so Nagato, Koizumi and I simply sat and regarded each other. It felt like a parting of ways, and I think we all wanted to memorise each other's faces. We didn't speak for quite some time.

"I am concerned that I have been misleadingly useful before this point in time," Nagato said dully, "and now you have become too reliant upon my abilities. We should as a group have located resources less subjective to external influences."

I could guess at the frustration she was feeling, the guilt. Nagato's abilities had become the crux of many of our schemes and plans, and all too soon, before we had even found the final direction of our conspiracy to save Kyon, we had been crippled. We had entered the endgame blindly and without any tools that could be used to our advantage.

"We've all been too complacent, and it's hardly your fault that none of us thought to have a backup of your skills. If anything, my reliance upon your capabilities is something I've brought with me from my early childhood. I've been the one to assume and take things for granted. I should have been assessing this mission more objectively."

Koizumi rested his head in his hands and sighed heavily. There was no trace now of his usual smile. "If anything, it's me. I... last week, with Suzumiya, I..."

My head jerked up, eyes wide. "You what, Koizumi? What happened?"

Koizumi's voice was broken and cracking as he answered. "I couldn't control myself. I could see all my hopes spiralling away, and I was wondering if maybe, maybe... there might not be a place for me in Suzumiya's heart, but I could still steal a moment before everything became set in stone. With her and Kyon..."

"You made a move on Suzumiya?" I asked incredulously.

Koizumi shook his head. "No. I just wanted to tell her, while I still could. I didn't get the words out, of course. Coward. But what if my distraction, and the way I've been behaving around her, has led to this?"

I wasn't about to let him wallow or escape a full explanation that easily. "Koizumi," I phrased it as politely as I could, "if you didn't tell her anything, what did happen?"

Nagato nodded her agreement. "I would also like to know."

Koizumi fidgeted for a second before replying. He seemed fragile and young and raw. "I, uh... Kyon. Kyon punched me."

I tried to bite back the smile that fought its way to my lips, ducking my head to the side. Nagato was her usual staid self. I tried to recover myself so that I could reply.

"I... see. Koizumi, given all the emotion and violence and drama we've seen during our activities... one punch is hardly anything at all."

I did want to reassure him. Though we all knew that things were cascading to something big and catastrophic, it was so unlikely that Kyon's frustration would be the trigger for it all. If anything, another conflict like this – and oh there had been so many over the years – that forced Kyon to recognise his feelings for and devotion to Suzumiya was more likely to stabilise everything.

I could see in Koizumi's eyes that he knew that, but there was this doubt and fear and guilt anyway. No more than was in my own gut, probably no more than was in Nagato's own complex mind.

"There is, in conclusion, nothing that our group can currently do."

Nagato's words were cold and true.

"And," I added, "we're all pretty impotent as independent entities as well. This game... is beyond us. I can only hope that Sasaki's group know what they're doing."

Nagato nodded. "I shall attempt to find a loophole within the restrictions placed on myself. You will be notified if I have any success."

In an emergency situation like the one suggested by the answering machines at the agency, there was only one setting that would work on the TPDD, and it would take me right back to the safe-room at the agency. I couldn't set any times or destinations. I couldn't access any information beyond what I already had stored. I could only hope that others – both those nearby and in the future – could achieve something.

"I will... make some tea."

Koizumi clasped my shoulder sympathetically. Nagato declined the drink and settled down into a chair in the corner of the room to get on with her work. She held a book in her lap for appearance's sake, and turned the pages mechanically. She had presumably set her biological self on auto-pilot. I filled the electric thermos with fresh water and sat beside the improvised kitchenette that we had set up.

It seemed strange. The world was falling apart around us, in an unpredicted and confusing way. It was happening at a fast speed that could quite possibly change the universe, and yet the afternoon felt and sounded like any other. The breeze still bumped hanging streamers against the edges of the open window, and cars could still be heard driving past the school outside. The clubrooms around us reverberated with voices and energy.

The door handle clicked and turned, and as if it was any other day Kyon simply walked into the clubroom. He set his bag down on the desk, his eyes going straight to Suzumiya's unoccupied seat before he greeted us.

"Hi, Miss Nagato, Miss Asahina." He very pointedly ignored Koizumi.

I offered him a cup of tea. Nagato turned a page, and muttered something barely audible. Kyon seemed dazed, and didn't react at all. He didn't say a word when I set his cup down before him, but kept staring at Suzumiya's empty chair.

"Are you all right, Kyon?"

He blinked and his eyes seemed to focus. He turned his head and smiled apologetically at me. There was something... off in his gaze, something changed inside him. I couldn't really explain it or even comprehend it fully. Though he always enjoyed drinking the tea that I made, he left this cup untouched. He looked to the window, then back at me, and there was something fragile about him that reminded me of how Koizumi had behaved not ten minutes before. When he'd done that for a few seconds, back and forth, his attention seemed to truly fall on me. His face was touched by a gentle and calm smile as he spoke.

"All right? Yes, thank you, I am. Haruhi's not here yet?"

"Ah, no. And actually, there's something I need to talk to you about..." I didn't know why I was saying it, why I was so worried, so certain that my time was up when at any time there might have come a message cancelling the emergency situation and restoring me to my usual mission status.

"There is?"

I could feel this sense of finality. Like I had already lost my friends, and the only experiences of my biological father that I ever had. Even with the creepy lecherous moments and the discomfort I felt while wearing Suzumiya's cosplay outfits, I had gained something during my undercover mission that I wasn't ready to let go of. I felt stupid and heartbroken and desperate all at once. I knew exactly how Koizumi felt inside. I reached across the table with my hands, but stopped just short of touching him.

"Things are happening."

Kyon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you could say that." He laughed softly, and I could tell that he had not understood the weight of my statement.

"No, things. I believe that once they are resolved – sometime within the next twenty-four hours – I will be recalled to my original time-plane."

He took hold of my hands, then. Our eyes met, and his smile faded into a pained expression. "A-are you sure, Asahina?"

"I'm sure. I'm so sorry. I know it's wrong to get emotionally involved during assignments, but you're just so..." my chest hurt with it. My words were coming out like hiccups, in bursts and gasps between tears. "... so wonderful, and I can't bear to just go, and..."

I had cried a lot in my life. I had cried into my Mum's arms, and Uncle Itsuki's, Aunt Yuki's, but I had never felt the warm protective embrace of my father before. Even though Kyon could not have possibly known who I was, the way he rose from his seat and walked around the table; the way he wrapped me tight in his arms and held me close to his chest felt like the true embrace of a parent. He smoothed my hair down, and just let me cling to him as I cried.

When he spoke, he sounded just as choked up and weepy as I did. "No, you're the wonderful one, really, and I'll miss you so, so much. We all will, you know. But we'll catch up to you. I'll catch up to you, Mikuru."

I sniffled and forgot myself in the emotion of the moment. "...and you're my best friends, and my family, and I love you, and..."

Kyon was holding me tight in his arms, a hand on my head, his voice warm and soothing and protective and kind. So innocent and generous and wonderful, my father. By that point I had absolved myself of all liability for the things that were shaking up the fabric of time and space, taking one last moment to say goodbye before I accepted my fate and evacuated myself back to the agency.

But in one breath, one second, the door to the S.O.S Brigade clubroom opened to admit Suzumiya, whose smile froze on her face as Kyon held me tight – oh like a father, or a brother, damnit! - and said "I love you" to exactly the wrong girl.

Then, just as quickly, Suzumiya was gone. Kyon was pulling away from me and running down the hallway after her. I was standing, tear-stained and bereft in the clubroom. Nagato was somewhere in her own head, Koizumi was brushing past me to head through the door himself and I could not reach anyone or anything.

I should have just used the TPDD then, but I was feeling perverse and bloody-minded. I returned to my apartment and packed up my belongings. I destroyed all hardcopies of my mission data and called Tsuruya. Without any questions at all, she and her mother helped me to clear out my apartment. We vacuumed floors and scrubbed clean sinks and dropped the keys in at the maintenance office in the lobby. I was a little too far gone to feel anything anymore, in shock. Was this a paradox? Was this predetermination or luck or just bad judgement? If only I could use my TPDD normally and go back to fix my mistake...

But I could not. I could only smile thinly and thank Tsuruya's family for their hospitality. I knew that I had to get out of the time-plane. I was not suitable for active or inactive duty. Why was I still holding on? I had no hope of fixing anything, but I felt too overwhelmed and confused and surprised by it all. I couldn't summon the energy needed to activate my get-out-of-dodge-free pass.

To her credit, Tsuruya said nothing. Always to her credit. She had been so good to me. Never questioning when I was looping back on myself or needing to hide out. Her home was always available to me, like it had been from the first day I had been inducted into the agency.

My breath caught, and for a moment I was too occupied remembering the details of that day to feel awful about the problems I currently faced. It was so obvious, and I'd somehow missed it all along! I was not only Mikuru, but another more terrible anagram. Mizuyasu Miruku was nothing more than Suzumiya Kurumi.

"I owe you more than I know" I confessed to Tsuruya, though she did not hear me. She had found sleep easily that night – it must have had something to do with how active she was during the daytime – and simply rolled over in bed. I sat up on my elbows to watch her, smiling sadly.

"I don't know how long it will be in your chronology before we meet again, or mine, but however much or little time it takes, I'm going to miss you."

After that I lay back in the dark. As my guilt and culpability and responsibility for the current disaster bled back into my mind, I realised I was trapped in hell. Until the sun rose, I felt the blame and inevitability of my bad choices ache inside my body, mind and soul. If only I'd chosen a different word. If only I hadn't been such a wet blanket. If only I'd been self-aware enough to see it coming.

Like a broken record I showed up at school the next day. Instead of my classroom, I headed right for the S.O.S Brigade clubroom. Suzumiya was there already, but nobody else was.

"Ah, good morning."

Distracted and not at all angry like I'd expected her to be, Suzumiya looked across the table at me. "Ah. Morning, Mikuru."

We sat in silence and the moment dragged out. The minutes. Then the hours. The bell rang to mark the passage of classes and breaks, and we could hear the murmurs of students in the hallways on the lower floors. It was a long time before Suzumiya spoke.

"Have you seen Kyon?"

"I-" my brain caught up to me as I started answering, and I realised that her question made no sense to me at all. "No. Not since yesterday, when he ran off after you. I didn't see him at all last night, if that's what you mean."

Suzumiya frowned. She looked a little queasy, a little pale around the edges. "He... never caught up with me. I-"

At just the wrong moment, my TPDD and wristwatch beeped in concert. I laughed nervously and patted my pocket. "I've been waiting for a call, um, from my parents. I'd better take it."

Suzumiya nodded, and though she seemed a thousand miles away from caring either way she waved farewell as I shut the door behind myself. There was nobody in sight in the corridor, so I checked my messages. As I had expected, it was an immediate recall. With one last glance back at the clubroom door, I grasped the TPDD in both hands and twisted until I felt the sickening crunch of the emergency recall activation resonate in my bones.