Chapter 9.

"What happened yesterday afternoon is lamentable." Haruhi began standing at the headboard of the enormous dining table before Friday's breakfast. "Not only we lost one of our strongest allies, we also lost the same person we owe that our world hadn't disappeared before. Perhaps many of you feel fear from this fact, and I wouldn't blame you. I even took longer than five minutes observing my toothbrush without knowing what to do with it. It was precisely due to this type of situations that I decided to keep my family out of it. If any of you feel this is too much and you don't want to know anything else, I won't reproach you and I won't allow anyone else to do it either. You are free to leave the SOS Battalion." Haruhi waited for a response, or someone to get up and leave, but that didn't happen.

It's funny to think that once I waited for that option to be offered to me. When Haruhi dragged us to her stupid adventures, in more than one occasion I felt the urge to desert and send everything to hell. I didn't feel like that today. She turned towards me and with a smile free of pretensions she confirmed my place and that of everyone in the group. By the way, Nagato, Koizumi and Asahina missed school and convmersed with us.

"Thank you everyone." She then continued. "I want you to see Asakura's sacrifice not as a warning of the danger we are facing, but as a message of courage and hope. And in honor to her courage, I want us all to be happy... I know it might sound like a silly thing, but knowing Asakura in the short amount of time I became acquainted with her, I am sure it would be the best way to honor her... fortunately... and I say fortunately since I despise funerals, we do not have a body to bury... but we have excellent memories and a legacy... so instead of asking you for a moment of silence for her, I ask you to give her a moment of clapping..."

Every TFEI terminal, esper from either agency, time travelers of whatever faction, we all stood up and we did it. It was the most solemn act I'd attended so far. Once the moment passed, we had a little quieter breakfast than other days, but not as sad as I had thought.

The activities were the same as the previous days, although many of us felt nostalgia since the rejoice Asakura imprinted into our working days was missing. It was until almost noon the first event worth mentioning occurred. Haruhi, Kimidori, Nagato and I were called into the study by Tachibana.

"Is there someone here that would like to share information with us?" The nice esper announced while we followed her.

When arriving at the ample study of the house, I was left a little confused. It seemed no one was inside.

"She's another friend of your little girlfriend, no?" Haruhi asked with irony looking at something next to the fine mahogany desk.

Only then I noticed the almost invisible presence of that girl with long and abundant black hair and white skin like paper, sheathed in the uniform of Kouyouen Academy. She didn't even look like she was breathing while she shot draggers at us.

"I suppose you remember Kuyoh Suou." Tachibana commented standing next to her.

"She's hard to forget." I said without trying to sound hurtful.

"She arrived here yesterday afternoon. Apparently, she confronted Nagato-Ni some hours before she attacked you."

Amazing. Not for the fact that they ran into each other first, but for the fact that she came out alive.

"..." The EMCC alien looked at me directly with those eyes carved with the darkest obsidian. She then walked like a ghost, without even moving her clothes or her hair and deposited a piece of paper in my hand. "You-need-information-important-retranslate-codes."

Haruhi immediately took the paper from my hand ignoring the unintelligibly babbling of the alien. In a blinking, her arm was left pressed by the hand of Suou. Haruhi only needed to look at her with intensity for Suou to desist and let her go. Despite her apparent lack of understanding of humans and their customs, she knew not to make the battalion leader angry.

"What is this?" I asked directed to Tachibana fearing another peroration without any sense from Suou.

"I'm not very sure. According to what the people at my Agency interpreted, they're codes that could be understood by EID terminals... a first common language between both instances."

Surely, understanding better the words of the esper than me, Haruhi extended the paper to Kimidori. When she got it, she passed the tip of her index finger over the curious print on it, which distantly reminded me of the Sanskrit script. She literally was left speechless. Close to thirty seconds went by in absolute silence.

"Is there something going on?" I asked the old assistant of the student council. Nagato is the one that answered me:

"The information contained in the document has a superior size than four Exabytes. Estimated time remaining to send, interpretation and devolution of the IED data is one hundred eighty seconds."

"Can you imagine what would we do with that bandwidth?" Haruhi asked me jocular. I looked at her with a stupid gesture without understanding her joke. "Four Exabytes in three and a half minutes! That's half the traffic of the Internet in a year!"

"And how do you know that? No, no, better yet... how the hell do you pretend me to know that?"

"You should read Wikipedia more often."

"You should really get a life."

"You're boring."

"You're crazy."

Tachibana, who couldn't help but to softly smile about our pantomime had to apologize. Haruhi and I turned to opposite sides making each a face.

"Information is processed." Kimidori said a little after recovering her gentle expression. "There are codes that correspond to different protocols used by Nagato-Ni. They will be greatly helpful for creating countermeasures."

I could even interpret those words and a doubt hit me at that moment. That means that...

"Is there an antidote program for the erasing of data of another interface?" Haruhi asked one step ahead of my reasoning.

"There is." Kimidori responded.

Nagato didn't change her expression, but I know what must be going through her head just now... if Suou would've arrived a little earlier, we would've had a chance to save her. If Nagato, Kimidori or the own EID would've had a capacity of analysis like the Sky Canopy's, Asakura wouldn't have died. As soon as the information was shared, Suou made way to the door of the study with that disturbing mechanical walk. She stood face to face with Nagato. I had seen these two in a similar scene before, however, this time there was no confrontation. They looked at each other, but unlike last time, there was no hostility. Nagato moved out of her way and Suou left the stance. Tachibana informed us then that Suou and the EMCC would stay away from the conflict, since it didn't interfere with their plans.

Although it felt a little hard at times, I tried to keep high spirits for the rest of the day. At around three in the afternoon I went into the bedroom for a motive I can't remember, I forgot when I got there... My God! This room is a disaster! The bed hadn't been made in days and there were dirty plates on the night stands, courtesy of the nocturnal lootings perpetrated by Haruhi, the overflown trash can and there were Haruhi's and my clothes tossed all over the place. I remembered then that just that morning I had some problems to find clean clothes to wear... the person who with I share this room must surely be going through a similar problem. My room at my parent's house never looked so dirty, even when I was very careless. Concerned, I opened the closet on the left side of the room and I found a very big wicker basket. But she will pay for this... if I ask her to come help me fix this vortex of entropy, she will kick me so hard that I will arrive at the dimension where our opponents come from.

An hour later, even if the bedroom wasn't immaculate, it had a much better state. The bed was made and the embrasures of the big window allowed the wintery wind to softly refresh the place. I had already made a first trip downstairs, taking with me every dirty dish and crock to the kitchen, just as with the accumulated trash; in this second and last trip I'd take the dirty clothes, contained now in the big basket, to the laundry room in the basement. During the gathering of such clothes, I discovered one of the best kept secrets of our feared battalion leader, her scar on a shape of a thunderbolt, her unique ring, her "come if you want to live": a pair of additional yellow hairbands. Smiling in the face of the discovery I made my way towards the basement remembering the Haruhi of almost two years ago, with that perfect pony tail... I hope to see her like that one day.

In my previous experience with this type of tasks, the only thing I remembered was to separate the laundry into whites and colors... I did such separation and I indiscriminately threw my and Haruhi's clothes into the enormous washer not yet used before. Said apparatus was disposed on the ample laundry room on the wall opposite to the access stairs and it was perpendicular to a dryer just as new and big. In the space left between them, there were various types of laundry detergents, bleaches and softeners disposed on a small shelve, two people would fit without an issue... who would imagine the type of scene that would develop there...

"What are you doing?" Haruhi asked with her voice of fastidious kindergarten girl, coming suddenly in.

"I'm planting a tree... What do you imagine I could be doing in a laundry room?"

"There's no need to be rude... wait a moment..." She suspiciously looked at the basket, now at half of its capacity. "Are you also washing my clothes?"

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Is that something wrong?"

"Y-You should've asked me before!" She complained walking towards me and pointing at me with her index. "Of course there's something wrong! My underwear is also there!"

"And after all this time, is that truly relevant?"

"Of course it's relevant... I don't know how much of a pervert you are..." She said cornering me into the small space of the detergents. "I don't know what you could've done with my clothes before putting them into the washer..."

Saying that last thing, she crossed her arms and turned her back on me. I noticed that her earlobes had tinged scarlet. What is she thinking about? That I'm so kind of sick person that sniffs female underwear...? She needs to stop watching those shows or reading that kind of manga...

"I would never do something like that..." I added after arguing the last thing I thought... seeing her feeling ashamed in a situation like this brought torturous memories and ideas to my mind... "I mean... why would I do that if I can do something better?" I completed.

For once I wanted to know how my brigade commander sees the world. I would do it imitating one of her favorite techniques: taking advantage of a situation in which she was at a disadvantage and doing what was in my mind without even reflecting about it... it's strangely exciting...

"What are you doing?" She asked confused noticing that I passed my hands by her waist. I didn't respond... "Stop right now or I will scream..." She said in a low voice. Of course she won't do it... "Enough... how dare you attack your commander in this way?" She asked in a whisper when I started to kiss her neck and her nape while she supported her hands on the functioning washer.

"What's wrong? Does my auto proclaimed commander fear being caught?" I asked caressing her abdomen. "The possibility of someone coming down here at this moment is one in one hundred... plus... isn't you who told me that doing this type of things secretly and risking being caught is more fun...? Didn't you mean it?"

"Idiot..." she mumbled lightly turning her face towards me... of course she meant it... no one means more what she says when talking about adventures...

For some minutes, she simply allowed me to do what I wanted without opening her eyes, time I took advantage of by caressing her and continuing kissing her neck, nape and shoulders. I think that I've only seen her wearing pants for the physical education class. No matter the weather or situation, Haruhi always wears short skirts or shorts... today wasn't the exception. She wore a pretty pleated white skirt, matched with a spaghetti strap of the same color, with a generous cleavage on the back... which also gave an idea... and I would get it until the last consequences.

"No...! Wait!" She said when she felt my hands caressing those beautiful thighs she's got and going up under her skirt. "Not here... let's go up to the bedroom..."

"Are you crazy...? I just finished cleaning it..." I ridiculed to her ear, feeling her tremble at the contact of my breath with her auricular lobe.

"How can you be so stupid...?"

With tenderness, I tangled my fingers in the straps of her panties... cotton... if she knew how much I like this material, I think she'd stop using it... and just when I was managing to discover a way to get rid of them, one out of a hundred possibility showed up...

"Suzumiya?" Asahina's small voice was heard, while her steps rumbled coming down the stairs towards where we were.

"Ah...! Eh... Yeah...?" Haruhi asked coming out of her lethargic state without knowing what to do.

I, equally surprised, reacted instinctively... I bent down behind Haruhi, the washers and the wicker basket would hide me for a while.

"Ms. Mori told me she saw you coming down here..." The time traveler said with innocence getting to the bottom of the stairs. "...I haven't seen Kyon anywhere and his training must begin now... have you seen him?"

It's true... I was going to start to think on a good excuse, in the meantime, Haruhi inclined herself over the washer faking trying to remember... I then realized my hands were tied... and it's not a euphemism. Looking at the floor, my hands were on Haruhi's feet... next to her underwear... I have no words to describe the beauty of the panorama left in front of my eyes as soon as I raised my gaze... I will make her go through a difficult situation... It will be my revenge for more than two years of abuse...

With extreme caution, I freed my hand and I started to raise them little by little, being especially careful to caress every millimeter of her legs... I could feel a light tremble on them.

"I haven't seen him either..." She lied in the meantime.

"Really? Then perhaps you guys missed each other on the way... because Mori told me he had come down here before to do laundry..."

While this part of the conversation developed, I lifted the pretty white skirt of my commander...

On your mark…

"Ah, that's right!" Haruhi then said, with an anxious voice not very common in her. "He asked me..." She was left speechless for an instant.

Get set…

"Yes...?" Asahina asked, intrigued.

"To wait for the laundry!" She responded barely being able to modulate her voice...

Go!

With gentleness, I buried my face feeling the softness and firmness of her skin, searching for her sex... as soon as I got there, I began a routine that I had done with her before in a different position. While I was doing this, my right hand went up in between her legs, allowing me to caress her vulva in the frontal part... my Gosh, this sounds very dirty... but it was very, very exciting.

Haruhi could barely contain a scream, product primordially of the surprise... but also from the enjoyment...

"Are you okay?" Asahina asked... I suppose that something in Haruhi's face must've changed.

"Y-yeah... everything's okay..."

"Oh... and then... do you know where Kyon went?"

"I think he was going to buy something at some convenience store in the neighborhood... Damn it!" That last exclamation was my fault... in these last weeks I had known more than one sensitive spot of her anatomy... suffer... suffer!

"I see... I hope he doesn't take long... Fujiwara doesn't like tardiness."

"No... Ddd!... don't worry... he'll be there on time... I'll send him there as soon as he finishes..."

"He finishes?"

"Gets back! I meant, as soon as he gets back... Damn it!" She exclaimed once more... again because of me... my thumb was now stimulating her from the inside... I think she was enjoying it... due to the humidity of her core, I can affirm she was.

"Well... thanks then..." There was a slight silence, but I didn't hear the steps of Asahina on the stairs. An instant after she talked again. "Are you truly okay?" she asked with sincere worry.

"Yeah, yeah... everything's okay... you can go back upstairs..."

"Because if you need to talk about anything..."

"Thank you, but I'm very well... God!"

"Eh... okay... I'll see you at lunch time..."

I heard our battalion mascot go upstairs and Haruhi waited some seconds before talking.

"You're a fucking crazy moron!" She blurted out with violence... while throwing her hips against my face and grabbing the hand that was caressing her, to modulate my action. For almost ten more minutes I could hear her agitated respiration while I put a lot of effort on my best cunnilingus to date... My tongue's frenulum hurt, but with joy I noticed that she could barely contain her moans...

At the end, she separated from me only to turn around, and supported by the washer she recaptured me, lifting her right leg over my shoulder, making me finish what I had started. I tasted her long and intense orgasm, which surely was more a product of the situation rather than the feeling...

"You are daring... a harasser... You deserve the death penalty!" She told me a moment later, recovering her breath and the missing clothing item, while fixing her clothes and hair... she looked agitated, anxious and surprised... but without a doubt, happy. "You must go to your training..."

"I'm going right away." I responded with a certain difficulty to talk... well, I truly hurt my frenulum... even so, with gentleness I took the cheeks of my crazy leader and I kissed her lips, a small and short kiss.

"Idiot." She limited herself to say taking her eyes away from mine. I smiled and I walked to the stairs on my way to the dojo. "But I swear you'll pay for this!" I heard hear threaten me when I left the basement.

The afternoon practice went as usual... however, there was a displeasure that had increased since morning and it was by now palpable. The confrontation with the SOS-Ni Brigade was getting closer... I wonder how it will develop... I don't ask for much, only not to by surprise. Asahina (small) was trained in the art of feeling spatial-temporal ruptures provoked by the functioning of the TPDD. It reminded me of Luke Skywalker having her eyes covered while trying to guess where Fujiwara would appear only trusting her instincts. I, more than trained by Fujiwara, was used as a boxing bag.

At around five in the afternoon, my discomfort had transformed into a slight depression... besides the lamentable event on Thursday, my confusion about the situation of Haruhi and I caused havoc to my emotional state, on the other hand, there was the sentence that Haruhi and I auto imposed on ourselves... tomorrow, Saturday, at two in the afternoon was the deadline to revert the change of memories of our families... if the situation didn't resolve by tomorrow before said time, we could forget our pasts and identities...

"Is there something wrong?" Asahina (small) asked me while extending a towel to clean my sweat to me at the end of practice at the bathroom door, taking me out of those thoughts.

"No... don't worry." I didn't see her during my training, she surely had other diligences. "Thank you for looking for me before my training began, Haruhi told me."

"Eh...? Ah...! It's nothing!" She responded... she looked a little confused, but who isn't these days? "By the way... do you have something to do later?"

"Not much... why?" I answered lightly intrigued.

"I'd like to talk to you for a little bit... what about the dojo, at eight is that okay?"

"Yeah... I'll be there." I said smiling. How does this young woman cheer someone up who's about to have an emotional collapse like me? I only hope it's nothing that's affecting her.

To avoid any unexpected event, I let Koizumi know that I'd take a walk around the Agora park, at around some one hundred meters from the house. He confirmed with me, just the way I expected, that at a prudent distance I'd have surveillance. I didn't change my training clothes... in some way, being sweaty would make it easier to blend in with the people that tend to exercise at said park. The weather started to improve, in a few days February would be here, given the first steps into my favorite season: Spring. Like this, infected by the spirit of the real homemade athletes who occupied the field, I decided to jog a little... some wore headphones, others wore skates or rode a bike... a few ran with their dogs. I didn't need any of those distractions... I was enclosed in my own world while I went over each of the problems that I had now... perhaps I was a little blocked during the day, only until now I'm being conscious of the truly dimension of what happened yesterday... I mean... Asakura died... according to what she told us, she couldn't go back to her original dimension, because it didn't exist anymore... then, what happened to her? Her body disintegrated... her spirit... transcended...? I hope so... but independently of that... what would happen if any other member of the battalion dies? Or any member of the brigade...? I'm at risk of dying myself... Haruhi... dead... the simple idea provoked me retching and I closed my eyes without stopping.

An impact brought me back to reality, getting away from such disagreeable ideas... I had accidently jumped into another person who walked and I had knocked her down. Instinctively, I advanced my hand and I managed to catch her before she fell to the ground.

"I'm really sorry! I got distracted, it was my fault..." I apologized while I helped her get up.

"Don't worry, it happens to me often, I constantly run into people because I get into my thoughts." The person said spiritedly... a girl with an overflowing energy who was already laughing uproariously about our accident. Seeing a known face gave some tranquility to my agitated heart. Tsuruya.

"I'm really sorry." I apologized once more and I did a reverence... I prepared to continue my way, after all, Tsuruya didn't recognize me... she would know Asahina, but she wouldn't have any memories of me.

"Wait!" She said before I could move. She rummaged into one of her sweatshirt's pockets and she extended a peach juice can to me. "I think you need it more than me."

"Oh, no thank you..." I said embarrassed... "... I couldn't take it."

"You reject me after you almost kill me?" That's a little exaggerated. She looked at me with those acute eyes full of sagacity that remind me of Haruhi. "You look very worried for a boy your age. Come on, take it!"

"Okay... but I'll do it if you allow me to also invite you one."

"Oh...! A fast and bold boy! If the guys were more like you, they would save themselves a lot of complexes." She responded and added a sounding burst of laughter to later accept my proposition.

My old senior was one of those people that can easily gain your trust. She's happy and despite being beautiful, she isn't selective with her friends. That would explain why she accedes to drink juice on a bench with a perfect stranger, although I don't think she is like this with every stranger that crosses her path, rather, she uses her surely very reliable intuition, the same as Haruhi.

"And well, boy, what do you want to talk about?" She asked some seconds after we sat down.

"How do you know I have a preoccupation? Perhaps it's my technique to get close to girls."

"Of course not... your eyes are very transparent, I bet your problem is precisely because of a girl, right?" Well, she does have a good eye... at the end, it was possible that I couldn't recover my previous life... so I decided to talk to her, it would definitely be one of the friendships that I'd like to establish again.

"You promise you won't say anything?"

"For the life of my ancestors!" I couldn't help not to smile in the face of her infantile and sincere conviction.

"Okay... then it's like this..."

I told her about my situation with Haruhi without involving her name... although it wouldn't have mattered, she didn't have any memories of her either. I told her on a superficial way everything we had gone through in the time we've known each other, the abrupt move and separation from our families and my confusion about my own ideas and feelings about her. This, of course, was the minor of my problems, but it would be something I could talk to someone else, without overwhelming her with apocalyptical ideas.

"You know something, guy?" She said after listening to all my story. "I can't help you!" She soundly laughed. "However, I think that your problem isn't so grave after all. It's about thinking some minutes on each of the things you feel. You're attracted to the girl, despite not being the model you look for... you don't like her personality, because it's the opposite of yours, you are constantly fighting... and even then... you don't get away from her... you also tell me that you're going through a crisis that forced you both to leave your homes... so, solve that crisis and think if that's really the cause to sharing a roof with her... if that's the case, you could get away and forget her, if not... well, you must discover that yourself."

Tsuruya smiled, but she didn't flaunt her sonorous laugh... she was really advising me, with all the seriousness she could imprint. My problem wasn't solved, but I felt very relieved sharing it with someone else.

"Thanks a lot for listening to me... and for the juice." I said standing up and doing a reverence to my improvised confident.

"It's nothing! If you tend to run around here, perhaps we can talk in another occasion." She said also standing up while putting her left hand behand her nape.

"That'd be great." I responded. "See you later, then." I said raising my hand and beginning to walk home.

"My name is Tsuruya!" She yelled some meters away from me. "And don't use Keigo with me or I'll get mad!"

"Okay!" I responded with a yell as well. "Call me Kyon!"

"What a weird name...! See you later!"

With my more appeased soul, I went back home. There were a few minutes left before eight at night, time in which Asahina had scheduled to meet me, and a good part of the battalion had already left, so I walked towards the kitchen to have a snack. Asahina showed up there and started to make some tea after politely greeting me.

"Let me change my clothes, I'll catch up with you there." I told her and I got up from the kitchen counter.

"Eh...? Okay..." She responded, confused... I suppose it's natural, to avoid suspicion if someone else heard us talking.

The brigade's guardian angel had already put on a pretty set, that despite being wintery, showed up part of her skin in a discrete cleavage. There's no way I'd go see her with my clothes full of sweat.

It took me only some minutes to go down to the dojo after washing my face and changing my clothes. The night had already fallen and when I went into the enclosure, there was barely a faint light. Asahina was already there.

"Good evening..." She said with timidity with her back towards me... although the greeting seemed very formal for the occasion, without even considering that we had seen each other in the kitchen, I responded in the same way.

"Good evening... is there something going on?"

"Yes... I needed to talk to you about something important..." She responded still without turning to see me. I decided the best thing would be to catch her at the center of the room. "No! Don't turn the light on, please..." She said feeling I walked towards the switches. "Umm... could you get a little closer?"

"Sure..." I did as she indicated until I was only a pair of steps from her back. She finally turned around, but she didn't look at me, her eyes were nailed to the ground and it seemed she had a big preoccupation. Distressed, I noticed she was about to cry. "Are you okay, Asahina? What happened?"

"I have to talk to you... you must know..." I don't like the direction this conversation is taking... "You must know about me..." No, no, please, stop... "About my feelings... for you..."

I froze up. After hearing her say this last sentence, despite the darkness, I could notice a marked blush on her face. Some seconds later, she finally dared to look at my face... she threw herself over me with open arms... I didn't know what to do, I stood still.

"A-Asahina... wait... no... we can't... I don't..."

A terrible dizziness shook me then while feeling how my body lost its sense of equilibrium and my center of gravity disappeared. The feeling barely lasted some seconds, but it was enough to provoke me some incipient nauseas. When opening my eyes again, I wasn't in the dojo any longer... in fact, it was daylight, I calculated it was a little after noon given the light that came through the window where we were... Asahina was still pinned to my chest while I was trying to locate where I was. As I could, I delicately separated her from me and I began to explore the place...

It was a room... the architecture suggested it was modern... perhaps from the seventies, but terrible neglect... abandoned, better said, the wall paint was falling off, the ceiling was semi demolished and it had dropped many pieces of lime on the ground. While walking I could hear the creak from the floor under my feet while a strong humidity smell filled my lungs. I walked towards the window, and I could see we were at a considerable height inside a building, perhaps some four or five floors up. The window didn't have anything more than crystal chips in the frame. Outside one could hear the birds chirping and only that. It was very cold, maybe as much as in my city in the winter mornings... we must be at three or four degrees despite the sun being close to the zenith. The most worrying part is that the small rural city in which I am doesn't harbor a soul. From the window, I could perfectly observe an old amusement park with an enormous Ferris wheel at the center, it looks just as abandoned as the same building we are in. The vegetation grows indiscriminately along the streets, invading the buildings and the public spaces... this city must have decades of being abandoned... searching for some reference of my location, as much as geographic as temporal, I found a sign at the distance... the background was a fading blue and red, it had the emblematic symbol of the crossed sickle and hammer and a message I did not understand... I can't read Cyrillic… Cyrillic?

"When and where are we?" I dared finally asked. Asahina had already taken a seat on the bed.

"It's your time... in fact, it's the same moment in which we left the dojo. We are in Ukraine, in the Polissya hotel, the main hotel of this city."

"And what city is this?"

"It's called Pripyat. It's been abandoned for more than twenty years."

The name of the city sounds familiar... doing a small remembrance diffused memories of our history class come to mind... Pripyat is at the north of Kiev, capital of Ukraine and since before I was born it was already a ghost town... part of the disappeared USSR... the cold war... nuclear contamination...

"We are close to Chernobyl!" I resumed after some seconds facing Asahina again.

"That's not important." She said taking me by surprise and capturing me again by the neck to drag me to bed. "There's something else you must know... or do."

Wearing surely her enhancers, she easily towed me towards the bed, laying me down on it and immediately jumping on me... the scene could result very erotic if it wasn't because I'm terrified... Asahina wouldn't behave like this, ever... she's completely out of herself... I was just reasoning that when I saw her close her eyes and tried to kiss me.

"We shouldn't be doing this... we must go back home." I said grabbing the time traveler by her shoulders and firmly talking. Petrified I saw that her eyes were getting full of tears.

"Don't... don't you love me?" She asked with a tone of voice that would bow down the rudest of mean. "Am I not pretty enough for you...?" She said this last part lowering her tone, irradiating as much sensuality as nuclear contamination came out of the reactor some kilometers away from us. "Don't you want me?"

Unfortunately, your mind can play tricks with you. Only the suggestion was needed and the position in which we were to remember a previous situation I went through, but not with her... I imagined her... over me... the movement of those precious breasts while... ENOUGH! What the hell is this...? Wait a minute! I had already face a fake Asahina before... one that just the same way tried to seduce me in our trip to the mountains last winter... There's a way to discover the deceit! Without thinking much, with my right hand I grabbed Asahina's blouse collar and I pulled it down, marking her cleavage more and allowing me to see the beginning of her breasts... the proof of falsehood must be there...

"I thought you'd be gentler..." She told me even more flushed. I couldn't take my eyes away from her chest... a mole in the shape of a perfect star left me speechless... before I could recover from the shock, the lips of Asahina finally made contact with mine... I swear on everything that's good and decent I believe in that I tried to resist, but she had too much strength... I wouldn't be so surprised if that mole wasn't there, but if the beginning of her right breast has that birth mark, then... wait... wait, wait! Asahina's birth mark is on her left breast!

Mustering all my strength I grabbed the impostor by her shoulders and I took her off me, since by now she was literally trying to rape me.

"What's wrong...?" She asked vexed.

"I uncovered you…"

Her innocent expression, sensual and shameful vanished immediately after I said those words. It was replaced by a cynical smile that quickly revealed her identity. Asahina-Ni was seated on my lap, pressing with her core into my hips... it would be such a turn on if it wasn't because I'm at risk of dying...

"Stop resisting, darling..." She said trying to kiss me again. "...we both know..." she added noticing how I resisted while putting her palms on my shoulders. "...at the end, I will obtain what I want from you."

My lungs released all the air they contained as a result of the scream that I involuntarily left out. A combination between the feeling of a monstrous electrical discharge and being stabbed took over every millimeter of my skin. The pain was simply unimaginable... the few seconds she inflicted said punishment felt like a whole life. She did it a second time without letting me recover my breath and I shook violently on the bed, I felt at any moment I'd wet my pants.

"You... won't get... anything... from... me..." I said... I was surprised about my own willpower...

My memories were giving me vigor... even to resist such abominable torture... the yellow ribbon...

The pain stopped but my confusion increased... the yellow ribbon was only a memory, but for a moment I thought I saw it in front of me... only the blink of an eye before a hand pulled with violence the hair of Asahina-Ni and another hand prescribed a frightening punch on her cheek. I shook my head, trying to recover my lucidity after the pain and little by little I began to understand what was happening.

To my right, at some steps close to the window, was Asahina, ours, with a scared face... but it wasn't her who attacked Asahina-Ni... in front of me, was the dark brown hair of our brigade leader with her back on me, her legs were apart and her torso swelled at each deep and agitated respiration... rage bad contained, it's common on her... and I must admit she's enchanting, especially today. She gave the punch with her left hand, her right hand had a lock of light brown hair from the slider who was recovering from the hit.

"Defending your man? What a romantic idea!" Asahina made fun while standing up. Haruhi didn't respond. She wouldn't waste saliva in some vermin like that one and she's got all my support on that.

Irritated in the face of Haruhi's aplomb, she threw herself like a beast towards her, but she didn't reach her. Asahina materialized in between both intercepting her homonymous and they struggled until they reached the window, the old age and neglect of the construction made part of the well give in at the contact with the fight and both girls fell into the void. Haruhi and I ran to the limit of the demolished wall, but both girls had already disappeared avoiding a potentially mortal fall. Only an instant after we saw them reappeared in the frontal yard of the hotel. An indescribable feeling of pride swelled in my chest seeing our Asahina fighting one on one with the impostor, giving her a fight she'd would remember without a doubt.

"How did you know I was here?" I asked Haruhi while she loudly cheered our warrior.

"Mikuru felt the jump that bitch made along with you..." She looked at me with reproach...

"What's your problem? Didn't you see her? She almost raped me! You should be preoccupied on how to get rid of the deep emotional trauma she will surely leave!"

"This is serious! Stop being so stupid! LET'S GO, MIKURU! FINISH HER!"

A moment later, I yelled with the same level as Haruhi's watching both girls fight a little, to then vanish and appear in another place of the center of the abandoned city and retake the fighting dialog. However, things started to get bad... despite Asahina's skills, Asahina-Ni had greater experience in combat and started to submit the battalion's mascot... Haruhi increased the volume of her acclamations, to a lever I felt would leave her voiceless...

And despite that, the result didn't vary... every time the blows that landed on Asahina's body were more frequent, while her counterpart began to hit with greater confidence...

"Asahina, that's enough! Get away! Go get help!" I yelled so she could go home for some type of support.

"Ignore this idiot! You are way more than that imitator! YOU ARE WAY PRETTIER THAN HER!"

"Don't be stupid, they're the same..." I said in the face of Haruhi's affirmation. She looked at me like one looks at a small dog that furiously barks at you.

"Don't you want Mikuru to win?"

"Of course I do…"

"THEN ENCOURAGE HER, IMBECILE!"

I did as she indicated... but the scale continued without inclining to our side... once it was evident the superiority of Asahina-Ni, I decided to take a pole or whatever it was and go there to help Asahina. Haruhi anticipated my intentions and took my hand.

"Give her only a moment..." She told me... she didn't yell anymore, she simply watched in silence the fight... concentrating... but... in what?

"Haruhi... we must go there and help her..."

"Only one more moment..." She insisted without letting me go...

Something happened then... I couldn't exactly describe what it was, but Haruhi let out the air she had accumulated in her chest while she concentrated... I watched then the contenders... Asahina-Ni managed to disappear just in time... behind her, a pure concrete wall had two holes... it was melted... the holes were a perfect circle of one meter in diameters... the edges, still illuminated in orange, were melting little by little before cooling off and hardening again... what the hell was that?

Asahina, with authentic panic on her face observed the result of her only look... Asahina-Ni, at a reasonably distance tried to comprehend what was happening, almost as lost as me...

"That's it Mikuru!" Haruhi said with an overflowing excitement... "Use your secret weapon!" She didn't do it... it's impossible... "MIKURU BEAM!"

Asahina turned her head searching for Asahina-Ni, but on the way, she was melting every object what crossed her field of vision... Haruhi had again made that beam that almost killed us all last year a reality... she's taking control of her powers...

"Eeeeeh!" It was the small scream from Asahina understanding what was happening to later close her eyes.

Asahina-Ni, realizing her sudden disadvantage, decided to take advantage of the fear of her counterpart and materialized herself behind her to execute a decisive hit...

"Behind you, Asahina!" I yelled fearing the impostor was faster.

Fortunately, it wasn't like that. Asahina opened her eyes looking just towards the chest of Asahina-Ni. A demolishing amount of energy came out shooting from her yes making her head whiplashed back, Asahina-Ni received the impact directly on her torso, which threw her several dozens of meters back, until she impacted against one of the columns of the hotel lounge where we were, making it collapse. Asahina arrived in a blink and carefully took Asahina-Ni out, unconscious, from the debris. A little after, Haruhi and I joined them.

"That was incredible, Mikuru!" Haruhi radiantly exclaimed while hugging the winner. I congratulated her as well. "You can open your eyes now... if you don't want it to shoot, nothing will come out." She indicated to her as if she was an expert on beams that come out of your eyes. A little dubious, Asahina listened to her.

"What do we do with her?" Asahina asked after putting herself together.

My face darkened... Asahina seemed fearful and Haruhi had a weird expression on her face... I saw the fainted body of that perverse version of Asahina... the same that had tried to fool me and seduce me... the same that tortured Asahina and me... partner of that one that had assassinated a friend of all of us and that wouldn't hesitate to kill us... it was decided... I wouldn't let the opportunity go.

Asahina didn't bother to hide her fearful exclamation seeing me take out from between my clothes the survival knife that had been property of Asakura. Determined, I made way towards the dissipated body of the slider ready to finish her. Asahina completely lost the color on her face while shaking in fear. Haruhi didn't speak, she simply watched me... she knew what my intentions were, but she didn't move a finger to stop me, apparently leaving to my discretion the following action and therefore, backing me up. I kneeled next to the passed-out girl... I had never done something like this, and I hope I never need to do it again... I took a deep breath and raised the knife over my head.

"Please! Don't do it!" Asahina begged grabbing my executing wrist with her eyes overflown with tears.

"But she won't miss the chance to kill us... if we let her go from here..."

"I beg you...! You aren't an assassin..."

"That's true." Haruhi added delicately taking the knife from my hand. "We are better than that..."

I stood up and I reflected about what I was about to do. I suddenly felt ashamed... we will win this war... but we will do it right, in a different way, otherwise it wouldn't make sense what side wins. Asahina, already more calmed, touched the left ear of her counterpart and some seconds later a fine dust fell from said place.

"She doesn't have her TPDD anymore..." She informed once the maneuver was done.

"Let's go home then, Mikuru." Haruhi suggested taking our hands.

If you think the problems ended that day with the defeat of Asahina-Ni, you are mistaken. Once home, which must've been empty, we found a good part of the battalion in great activity and several of them laid down on the dojo... getting medical attention... after the initial disconcert, I searched for a known face that could give me the details.

Haruhi, Asahina and I went then until the end of the dojo, where Tachibana finished putting a gaze on the forehead of Koizumi. Nagato joined us on the way there.

"What happened here?" I asked the esper after confirming he wasn't gravely hurt.

"We got a visit from Koizumi-Ni... we conversed a little and he left some minutes ago." Koizumi said smiling... given his state, it seemed he hadn't come out victorious this time.

"No one..." Haruhi didn't dare finish her question.

"We are all alive and without grave wounds." Koizumi resolved giving Haruhi back tranquility. "But they left this for you all..."

He extended a little envelope to me. I stretched out my hand to the esper so he could incorporate and when the five of us were together I opened the envelope.

You have been the most fun versions of ourselves that I've run into, so let's end this in the most exciting way... let's get together on Sunday, we will be waiting for you to have a fight between both brigades... as you obviously are at a disadvantage, you can take all the support you need. Tomorrow afternoon, one of us will give the location and time of the fight. The winner takes everything.

I anxiously wait for the encounter... I guarantee you it will be a lot of fun.

Haruhi Suzumiya.

At least one wish came true... we won't be taken by surprise.

Chapter 9.

End.

Author notes: I'm a normal guy with modest life style. I put that as a comment because of the erotic resource I used on this chapter, I don't know if I were too far with it, so I should be great that you tell me if I exceeded. I really hope you are enjoying the story and I'll be waiting for your comments. See ya next update!

Translator Notes: Uff, a lot of things happened, didn't they? Who thought Kyon was going to give into Mikuru? I wonder how many times he dreamed about this moment and then it happens and he turns it down. Haha. Good for Kyon, I cannot imagine getting killed while getting it on. Lol And we finally got to hear from evil Haruhi! She sounds like a lot of fun. Haha. The action was great during this chapter. Pepsipez doesn't disappoint! I'm so excited about what's coming next, I'm sure you are too J I'll try to have the next chapter out quick. See you guys next time!