2004, Asahina Residence, Kyon's house and surrounding area, Tokyo

Routine is easy to fall into, but so is chaos. There was so much unpredictability during my mission as Asahina Mikuru that after a few long months of exhaustion I simply became used to life being, well, life. By the second year of my mission, there was hardly anything that could terrify me, though I was careful to keep up my act of timidity.

We spent the Friday evening at Kyon's house watching an old horror film as a Brigade, arguing about who owed money for what snacks. Kyon was complaining about how the film was too long; how he'd end up sleeping in and why the hell had Haruhi volunteered the two of them to help out with the school's pre-entrance exams for students.

"It's not like the exams matter, I mean it's not a private school or an ideal one. There won't be much competition or excitement"

Suzumiya grabbed the bowl of chips from him with a glare and relocated herself onto the floor beside my legs. Kyon's little sister – who had snuck her way back downstairs so many times we'd just given up trying to protect her young eyes – exclaimed loudly and bounced onto the chair beside Kyon to gain pride of place in the best viewing position possible.

"It's not about the exams, Kyon, it's about your duty to the S.O.S Brigade! We need to be on the ball, keeping an eye out for new recruits and potential targets!"

"Targets, Haruhi? They're students, not live game."

Sometimes I don't think Kyon knew he said those things aloud. With Haruhi ignoring him resolutely, Koizumi smiling inanely and me occupied in my own mind half the time he probably had no signs from us that we'd heard him say a word. Nagato of course didn't count; she usually ignored anything that wasn't directly addressed to her. Or appeared to. I knew from experience and my dossiers how uncannily observant her alien mind could be.

"You do realise," he said, "that showing the brats where to put their shoes and helping keep the hallways clear of refuse isn't going to get us anywhere near enough to the exams to really observe them?"

Haruhi snorted. "Of course I know that! That's why you're going to cover for me!"

It was a testament to how long we'd all been doing this that Kyon did not react with any anger or exasperation, simply hard-learnt capitulation. His heart wasn't in the criticism, and he answered her as if his agreement was implicit and understood. "It's far easier for two people to pretend to be three – or even four to pretend to be five – than it is for one to pretend to be two. And don't get me started on the gender issues I might have with this. Why don't you ever consult me in your plans?"

"Shh!" Kyon's little sister really wanted to see the film, I guess.

Nagato stared at Kyon evenly, and slipped a bookmark between two pages before speaking. "I apologise, but I cannot avoid my family reunion." I was so used to Nagato herself now that I could hear the warmth in some of her voice, especially when she spoke about her minions. I bit my lip, hoping that Suzumiya wasn't rubbing off on her.

"And I've got that dental appointment." Koizumi shrugged and rolled his eyes, something I barely noticed in the darkened flickering room. On the television screen, someone's feet were creaking against a staircase as ominous music trilled and hummed discordantly.

Kyon opened his mouth as if to criticise Koizumi, but then he caught sight of my own apologetic smile. He shut it, and shrugged, sinking back into the chair. There was a look in his eyes that was almost a warning to our little group; he knew we were up to something, and he'd be wanting to know what later on.

Hopefully by the end of the weekend we'd have synthesised enough of a mess to involve him.

It was a welcome change to wake up on a Saturday morning and to be free to enact our own plans without fear of diversions from Suzumiya or Kyon. With the two of them occupied and at a known safe location, we were safe to either have a whole weekend off or make good use of our time. It had hardly been a choice; we understood each other now, and so while I tested the limitations on time travel and strategic location choices, Nagato conferred with the IDSE and Koizumi picked up his phone to call up the ringleader of our rivals. The elusive and confusingly friendly Miss Sasaki.

We'd been worried at first, that their group was greater in numbers, as well as more lucid and powerful than our own. Suzumiya and Kyon basically counted as dead-weight if we ever had to go up against them directly. But they were less organised than we were, more scattered and divided by individual goals and personalities. In comparison the S.O.S Brigade even with all its subdivisions and duplicitous internal dialogues was far more solid and strong. Not that we were really any sort of sinister organisation, of course. We had our own organisations and agencies even with our shared priorities, and we had no need for any more.

In any case, by midday we had done nothing that any observers could have said looked like anything more than some teenagers playing with toys, reading books and talking on the telephone. Like perfectly normal kids we met at a local landmark near the train station and made our way to a reasonably priced café. Not one of the ones we usually frequented, but then again we didn't exactly want word getting back to Suzumiya that we'd been skiving off Brigade duties for the sake of petty socialisation.

The next part of our plan was quite mundane. We were to wait until Sasaki and her companions arrived. So we did what came naturally; we ordered tea for the whole table and a diplomatic amount of biscuits that we could afford and nibble on with enough left over for our imminent guests.

Instead of bringing out a book, Nagato stared at me. Koizumi waited until our drinks were brought over, then rolled his eyes at Nagato and elbowed me gently in the ribs. "So? Come on, you've got to explain why Suzumiya was staring at your breasts so speculatively when we all went home last night."

I crossed my arms, then I realised that the action only served to make the guilty parties to my shame even more obvious. I exhaled and nearly burnt my tongue on my tea, to buy a few more seconds of dignity. But I couldn't hold out for long, and I knew I should get on with it before I was telling not two people but six the truth of my shame.

"It happened on Friday, when we split up to get supplies I ended up with Suzumiya, remember?"

"Yes." Nagato said.

"So we were walking out of the video store, in the direction of Kyon's house. But at that time of day, the sun and the glass display window meant that you could see our reflections in it very um, w-well."

I took a moment to regain my composure, the memory of the incident strong and clear in my memory.

"Suzumiya said that it was unfair that my breasts were so large in comparison to hers," I confessed, "and I replied without thinking that breastfeeding would make them l-larger."

It was an idiot's mistake to have made, and an agent of my training and experience should never have been so complacent around a mission target. It was unthinkable. I almost took another bolstering sip of tea, but my guilty heart must have been pushing against my diaphragm; I hiccuped instead.

I couldn't meet their eyes. Nagato was unresponsive, but I could feel the amusement, just feel it radiating off of Koizumi. Any second now and he'd burst out laughing, I just knew it.

"In my defense," I objected, "I did cover quickly. I more or less followed that up with a frantic explanation that I'd been reading about pregnancy for a biology assignment, and that it had mentioned that breast size can be permanently increased by pregnancy hormones. So maybe if she ever had children, her breasts would increase, er, in volume."

Koizumi did laugh, then, starting with a reluctant snort and then collapsing forwards onto the table with shaking shoulders. Nagato merely watched me across our teacups, her gaze more thoughtful than anything else from what I could tell.

"Did you mention that it is also possible for breasts to decrease in size, sometimes becoming smaller than before pregnancy, after breastfeeding is abandoned in favour of solid foods?"

Koizumi made a helpless noise from where he lay against the table, and he clutched at the edge of it with a desperate hand. He must have been very tense from our recent activities, I reasoned, because nobody sane would find breastfeeding so amusing. Maybe it was my incompetence? I refused absolutely to even think of considering the connection between myself, breastfeeding, and Suzumiya. That way lay madness.

"Ah, no. I thought it prudent not to."

Nagato nodded. "That was wise." She moved her arm as she spoke, sweeping Koizumi's teacup out of the vicinity of his shuddering guffaws.

"Anyway," I sighed, hiccups finally fading as my tea reached just shy of tepid, "that's probably why she was so fixated on my chest. All evening. It was creepy. At least when she gropes me, it's like when Mum takes me bra shopping. Painful and assessing. The... intent in Suzumiya's eyes was so threatening, I thought my breasts might just retract into my ribs out of self-protection."

Koizumi made an incredulous squawking noise beside me.

Nagato stared at my chest. "I did not know you were modified with that capability in mind."

I rolled my eyes, she had to know better than that, right? Was she joking? I had better play it straight just in case, I rationalised. "I wasn't – they weren't – Nagato. It was just... a bad way of describing how threatened I felt. As if Suzumiya was issuing a challenge to the density of my mammaries."

Nagato accepted the explanation, and I turned my eyes out to look over the café. I had doubted that we'd get any effective discussions going before the others showed up. It was a faint hope now that our collective would even seem sane when the others showed up. I wished fervently that they would run late, or that Koizumi would start regaining his composure.

Sadly, it was not to be. The door to the café swung open and in walked our rivals and sometimes reluctant allies, led in front by a glowering Fujiwara and followed up in the rear by the mechanical and awkwardly human movements of Kuyou Suou. Kuyou's long hair seemed almost as inflexible and carefully structured as her personality.

The three of us shuffled over so that there was enough space for everyone to take a seat at the table. Sasaki greeted us happily, Tachibana politely, and Fujiwara sat without a word. Kuyou remained standing, staring at Koizumi.

Oh Uncle Itsuki, I thought to myself, the stories I'll have about you when I get home! To Kuyou I said "He's not always like that."

Kuyou's eyes flicked to me, and Nagato shifted awkwardly in her seat. But without a sound Kuyou settled down into a chair and laid her hands flat in her lap with mechanical precision.

"So, how've you been, since we saw you last?"

Sasaki was so open and friendly, it was hard at times to believe that her mild disposition lay behind powers similar to Suzumiya's own. It was also hard to get used to the idea that she was often working against us, when she was so amicable and sweet.

I sighed heavily, but smiled back at her. "Not too bad."

Tachibana smirked, and Sasaki nodded emphatically. "Same here, you know? Busy times, but nothing we'd admit to in polite company like this."

I looked sideways at Koizumi, who was finally recovering himself and sitting upright in his seat.

"I'm not sure if 'polite' is the right word for some of us." I muttered under my breath. "So anyway, you know what we want from you already?"

Sasaki nodded.

"So is there anything you need or want from us in exchange?"

There was a keen and hungry look in Tachibana's eyes as I spoke, and I felt a strong premonition that our preliminary negotiations regarding our plans were going to be very demanding of my patience.

"To put it in a nutshell," Fujiwara said sternly, "we want data rather than services."

Nagato frowned – visibly frowned – at his words. She said nothing, a truce of silence between herself and the other data-based entitiy at the table that we had agreed upon quite early in our association with each other.

"Data?" Koizumi didn't seem to like the sound of that, and I know I didn't. Koizumi stared straight into Fujiwara's eyes. "What data, specifically, do you mean?"

Sasaki cleared her throat and laughed awkwardly in the silent tension that answered Koizumi's question.

"Well, it's a bit of a sensitive subject. You see, ideally we'd like to be able to leave it unspecified for the moment. Narrow it down closer to the time-plane in which it will be needed."

My lips twisted together as I assimilated that information. "I think that our requirements from you are far smaller than the security risk to us that yours pose. You can't mean for this to be a one-for-one exchange here."

A bit of the cheerfulness left Sasaki's eyes. "I know you have your reservations," she said, "but when the time does come, the information we shall most likely need will be very minor indeed. It will be of little value to both our parties, but relevant to my interests nonetheless."

"I'm not talking about the information itself," I replied as seriously as I could, "but the way something like that can hang over our heads. If we have no idea about what it is you want, it may affect our activities and also our trust in our knowledge. That alone is so huge an advantage that I almost worry you're trying to set us up for something cataclysmic in the near future."

Fujiwara opened his mouth to say something derisive, but his words were lost to me; my attention was occupied with a minute flicker of fond exasperation that showed on Sasaki's face before her polite stern smile returned.

"We have no intentions of anything of the sort," Sasaki said earnestly, "but I can see how the secrecy of our demands may be upsetting. I hadn't wanted to put this out there, but I'm going to have to now. It's not meant to be a threat, not really, but if you can't agree to our request then I will eventually have to employ a specific tactic."

I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Fujiwara nodded sharply, once, a bitter mean smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"I," Sasaki explained, "went to junior high school with Kyon, you already know that. He has nearly completely forgotten about me with the activities we have been synthesising to keep Suzumiya occupied. I know his home address, his phone number and email. I've been avoiding direct contact out of deference to the jurisdictions of your agencies, but if you do not agree I will have no choice but to directly contact Kyon and convince him to help me obtain the data I will need."

Koizumi was completely sober-faced now. He sucked in a slow breath beside me. Sasaki's demeanour was friendly enough, but her words were quite direct and unforgiving.

"If it's something so serious," I protested, my voice rising with the panic that I felt, "and you know it's going to come and what you might need when it does come, why all this secrecy? Why can't you give us the same trust we've given you in the past, and just ask for our help in return?"

"She is, you idiot." Fujiwara spat out with a scowl. "She just doesn't want to compromise any of our organisations or loyalties when the whole thing is still avoidable. Think. If I, or you, or any of us had information about something this big, it might disrupt the equilibrium between the powers interested in this time-plane."

I felt like I'd been slapped across the face, but Fujiwara had a point. A solid point. Most attention was on Suzumiya and Kyon. I myself was far from willing to draw attention to my exact biological heritage, and it was arrogant and stupid to assume that I was the only one who had secrets. I had little choice, I supposed.

"Fine. But you've always had the option of negotiating with us over known dangers. I'd like, for the safety of Nagato and Koizumi – and Kyon and Suzumiya – to have the option to re-negotiate the value of the favour when all the details come to light. If it becomes disproportionately costly to us at the time, we should be able to ask for some recompense."

Sasaki nodded, and we shook hands on it. The surface of the table was sticky beneath my forearms. I rubbed at them as I sat back in my seat, half glad and half devastated that the initial negotiations had passed so quickly.

Out of all of us, only Sasaki, Koizumi and Tachibana truly had need of personal organisers. They pulled them out and opened them in the clear spaces of the table and after ordering lunch, we set out to co-ordinate dates, times and possible backup plans. When we had identified a number of suitable times during the school year, Sasaki stretched her neck in both directions and grinned around at all of us. For the moment, at least, we were working as one group with shared common purpose.

"All right! Let's plan this abduction!"

If only our shared purpose wasn't the orchestration of my own kidnapping. Oh, the things I did in the name of duty!

Important note: The reviews to Chapter 13 had me checking and discovering that though I'd set the canon as 'book canon', this does not show up as obviously on ff dot net as it does at other archives I use. I want to clarify here that the kidnapping mentioned is not plot relevant to The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi, but is a reference to one of the adventures Kyon and his friends have involving Fujiwara in 'The Scheme of Suzumiya Haruhi' by Nagaru Tanigawa, which is the seventh volume in the series. I'm not taking the plot in a strange direction, I just wanted to write a very short chapter that played around with and referenced back to the books, to show how some of the implications from my plot devices would interact with the source material. As I've had Kurumi mention in the past, aside from relevant details to her story, there won't be any re-hashing of Kyon's experiences with the S.O.S brigade; this is all you'll really see mentioned about any kidnapping and it's not a huge plot point.

I didn't mean to confuse anyone, and I was sure that it was clear I was basing this off the books and not the anime or manga series. I'm very sorry that I didn't check the visible formatting better, or mention my source material more explicitly at the start. I'm putting this note at the end of Chapter 13 and the start of Chapter 14 just in case anyone misses it. I'll also go back sometime and point out in a more visible way that this is fanfiction based on the books and as such relies on an understanding of book canon up to volume nine at times. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing so far, especially since some of the characters I've used recently are more present in the books than any of the other mediums.