As you read this, Touhou 18 has just been officially announced, and the demo has been out for a while now. It appears to be one of the more complex in the series, as the girls can now have loadouts like Seija did. Items from the other characters come into play giving you perks, weapons, bombs, lives, etc. This gives this entry one of the deepest replayability in the series. Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Sanae are playable, and from the demo, it looks like they're heading for the Tengu village, which is a big deal, because we've never seen it at all in the series. The demo is out on Steam, so please give it a try. Also, Touhou 15.5 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. An official Touhou game actually releases on a Nintendo console. It's big news.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is owned by Nagaru Tanigawa. Touhou Project is owned by ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. I own neither. This is a fan fiction of those works.

Beta Reader (and partial writer) for this episode:

Smooglii

Five minutes into our break, I'd had enough commiserating, and while everyone else was doing their best to keep each others' spirits up, I had shut out the world and been reduced to sitting under a dead tree by the track and cradling Clownpiece's baseball bat like it was a national heirloom. Though I say it was Clownpiece's, it had every same nick, scratch, and dent that I could match with my hazy memories of the bat from my one and only high school baseball game, which in my mind proved that this bat must have been immortal. This was the same hunk of aluminum that had almost beaten me to death a while ago, yet everything down to the black tape on the handle was the same as the one from that game. Well, no, I've played baseball games. It's just that baseball game was for serious players, wasn't it?

At the time, I was nothing more than an idiotic teenager who couldn't admit to himself how much fun he was having, and tried to act all cool and annoyed about it. Whether or not this bat was the same one I held, the person who held it was now entirely different. I don't mean philosophical sophistry like the Ship of Theseus or how you can't jump in the same river twice, nor am I talking about how many times my body had been remade by the various forms of healing and enhancement and even resurrection that had happened today. What I mean is that mentally, I was now a killer. Someone who could only feel guilty about how easy his life had been back then, and who wanted nothing more than to travel back in time and smack himself for being such a weakling... Well, even if I say that, it's a lie. In reality, I wished I could run away from this dead universe and be that person again.

[Nagato:] "Feeling nostalgic?"

"...Yeah." I cracked a small smirk as I hefted the bat up onto my shoulder, the weight, the smell, everything about it evoking my memories of that day. Nagato's awkward, stiff jog around the bases, and how I had to treat the whole team to lunch. I remembered how after my first home run, the other team just glared at me from the pitcher's mound in bewilderment. "Yeah, I hadn't forgotten how you ran the bases. I bet we're a legend in the Kamigahara Pirates' locker room now. For reasons both good and bad."

[Nagato:] "There wasn't a need to expend energy on appearing normal. Suzumiya would have had a negative reaction to it."

Well, I can't argue with that... Though, how different is your body from ours that a proper stride takes more energy?

[Nagato:] "Also, you are mistaken. The bat is not identical to how it used to be."

Isn't it?

I took a closer look. Obviously I didn't recognize every scratch and scuff on the aluminum, but had the same rough shape, and the four huge dents in it looked roughly like I remembered.

[Nagato:] "Only two such indentations existed on the bat in your memory. The new ones were added recently."

...Huh. I was sure the bat was identical. My memories clearly showed four dents, or so I thought. On reflection though, yeah, there had only been two. It wasn't like a shadow memory - just a plain old mistaken detail that I'd projected on the past. For some reason, even that unsettled me.

"Still, it's in better condition than I'd have expected," I said. Despite no longer being enchanted, the Pirates believed it to be a lucky bat, so I was sure they'd have smashed every ball they could with it in the years since that game.

[Nagato:] "The wear on its surface indicates that it was only used a few times before Clownpiece obtained it, but it was transported often."

"Meaning, they took it with them wherever they went, but hardly ever hit anything with it." As expected of baseball players - the most superstitious athletes in the world. I bet they just carted around and brought it out when they were losing like it was some kind of secret weapon. Heck, if they had that much faith in it, it might've actually become a real magic item.

"And somehow Clownpiece took it for herself." I sighed, my breath coming out in a puff of smoke in this cold evening. "I hope she didn't hurt any of them to get to it."

[Nagato:] "We'll find out when we get back... but yes, now I can confirm it while you have it in your hands. This is our bat from our world. I can't believe that fairy had it."

I better not find out tomorrow that the Pirates were wiped out. If they were, at least I got their killer. My eyes drifted to the remains of Clownpiece - already her body was becoming dust to the wind, mixing with the snow coming down. For her to go out of her way to get the baseball bat, which was part of my memories of high school, to try to use it against me, to try to kill me with it...

Normally I'd hesitate to describe someone as evil. Treating Junko as a special case, even the other Alternates had reasons for their actions that, even if I didn't agree with them, at least made sense to me. Clownpiece, though, was a different story. I'd never call it a point of pride that I killed her, but if there was a single person in this world that I could kill without regretting it, it'd have to be her.

[Nagato:] "Are you planning on taking that with you?"

I hadn't been, but it seemed a shame to leave it in this world all alone. If the Pirates were alive, they'd want it back for sure, so I figured I ought to at least make some attempt at recovering it. What's one more item to carry with us, even if it was a heavy lump of metal? I gripped the handle of the bat and tried weighing it in my hand - it wouldn't be a match for the Sword of Hisou, but if it had collected the Pirates' faith, maybe it'd be a decent weapon for somebody even though the home run spell was gone.

[Nagato:] "Strictly speaking, it isn't gone. Deleting a program frees up data to be overwritten on the drive, but the program itself still exists."

Huh? Really?

For a few seconds, there was no response but the indistinct chatter of the rest of our team. When Nagato next spoke up, the faint tinge of personality in her voice sounded like she'd come to a realization.

[Nagato:] "You are correct. I... I detected unusual data in the bat after you picked it up. I was going to warn you that it might be trapped... however, the additional data is likely the object's accumulated faith."

I was right about that? I gave it a practice swing from my sitting position - it sure didn't feel like it had any power, but what did I know?

[Nagato:] "By itself, it will do nothing... However, I can take advantage of it. Once Sakuya and Tenshi have been pushed through, I will restore the deleted program and amend it. The small amount of divine power in the bat will allow it to safely interface with magical energies, and the bat itself will target the energy's origin point."

Meaning...

"...I can hit danmaku back at the enemy?"

[Nagato]: "Retaliation mode."

You just keep finding new ways to come through for us, huh?

"Thank you, Nagato." I forced a chuckle, looking up to the sky. "From winning a mere baseball game, to saving the world, I can always depend on you."

[Nagato:] "What are you talking about?" I swear in my mind, I could see her smile. "Winning that baseball game was saving the world."

[The Meltdown of Haruhi Suzumiya]

[Episode 12]

["The Reappearance of Yuki Nagato"]

"You may feel that I'm currently an abnormal Yuki Nagato. That judgment is correct. But I myself cannot accept that I am abnormal... because if I do, I'll become alone. I was scared, so I tried to hide it."

-Yuki Nagato

"'Please join my club because otherwise I'll be the only one in it. Thanks.'"

-Yuki Nagato

"I know my name. I know that I'm Yuki Nagato. But at the same time, I'm not. I don't recognize my memories as my own."

-Yuki Nagato

"It feels like I'm reading someone else's diary. The memories; they don't feel like my own experiences. But since I remember all the same things Yuki does, I can pretend to be her easily enough."

-Yuki Nagato

"You okay?"

Youmu stood alone, silently staring at the city after finding her sword. Asakura had helped in that regard, before going to the portal to help with keeping it open. It was like the Yukari portal didn't want to stay active. Youmu waited for Asakura to leave our proximity before speaking.

"No," Youmu shook her head. "Not really." Youmu was as still as a statue for a moment, before turning her head to me. "Just... I don't know. Life before all this was simpler. Didn't have to think about too much when performing my tasks. Not used to this, you know?"

"You and me both," I said without sarcasm. The least I can say about all of this is that we don't have to be alone. Misery loves company, I guess.

Youmu stared into my eyes for a moment, before understanding. "Right. Just... I don't know." She spread her arms to the city. "I'm having a hard time dealing with it all, and I know Reisen is too. All of us are."

Youmu looked so vulnerable. Again, like how I saw her when she confided in me years ago. The two of us had been through a lot in the past four years, having gone through the experiences of Gensokyo's incidents, including the one she was the culprit of. This girl tried to kill me once, and has since become a close ally. And despite that I haven't spent much time with her, I dare say she's become quite a friend. We were all in a situation that was just so outlandish, so heavy, that how could anyone deal with all of this going on?

"You told me earlier that I would die in the future, didn't you?"

I paused, as she suddenly asked that out of nowhere. Recalling what I told her in that entry hall a while back, I nodded. "It was a possibility."

"Then I think I understand why I got targeted, and why I got through it now." She seemed to realize something, an apologetic face washing over her. "Ah, sorry. Didn't mean to bring that up. I wasn't the only one-"

"It's okay. Right now, we're just trying to survive. All of us. I avoided my death, and you avoided yours." And yes, I think I finally truly understand why and how you didn't make it into the future. Mayumi wanted you dead... though at the end, she sacrificed herself.

Giving me a nod, Youmu went back to staring at the city.

Man, I hope that even if we get through this, that we can find some peace in all of it. It's just too much for us. Seriously, seeing her like this was heart wrenching. The memories she was going through that weren't even hers, having someone trying to kill her, knowing that she could have died. It was enough for me to go through those, but seeing it affect her like this made me know it was hitting her especially hard.

Then again, I've hardly spent enough time with her. Maybe this was how she handled things - she shuts down. She wanted to shut down when she was telling me about her feelings for Yuyuko. No, that's how she had to handle things. She did live in an afterlife realm, with Yuyuko being her sole source of social contact, for the most part. I don't know how chatty the ghosts that hung around Hakugyokorou were, but she couldn't have confided in them too much, right? Even from the files, Youmu and Yuyuko weren't too well known, other than that Yukari would visit. She did say that Yukari had brought in movies and such, so...

I was mentally rambling to myself over her, speculating who she was. She's far older than I am despite her youthful appearance, so she's lived her life the way she knows how. I don't actually know her, when I get right down to it.

Still, it took guts for her to confess her feelings and try to get advice from me.

Reimu and Marisa had wandered past, chatting between themselves, Marisa with a distant look on her face. They looked like they were searching for something, and it hit me that we were standing near where Clownpiece's body had fallen - enough of it had vanished that what remained was almost completely buried by the snowfall.

"If you're looking for Clownpiece, she's over there," I called out, gesturing with the bat at the lump of snow that used to be a fairy. I glanced at Youmu, who shook her head and waved vaguely in Reimu's direction as if to tell me that she'd had enough conversation for one day. Not that I could blame her for wanting to keep things simple, I guess.

With Youmu turning her back, I was left to watch as Reimu and Marisa found and stood above Clownpiece's remains. I didn't feel like interrupting them; even if Marisa never acted like it, it was still awkward to be friendly with her, and right now she looked like she could use some company from anyone other than me. Marisa's expression grew dour as she looked upon Clownpiece, but even so, she cracked a smile at something Reimu said. As far as I could tell, those two were best friends; no need for me to butt in where I wasn't needed. Hell, maybe I'd even pressed Youmu too much.

Reimu swiveled and caught my eye with hers - I realized I was staring, but she beckoned me over. Not even to be polite - she looked like she had something to say. Cautiously, I crept forward and joined them, still unsure if I was being impolite by doing so.

"Did she say anything to you, Kyon? Like, 'ha ha, you can't kill me,' or something?" Reimu asked as soon as I was in speaking distance, putting to bed the idea that she'd called me over to tell me off for staring. Cripes, maybe I'm the one who should stop thinking so hard.

"Uh... nothing like that, I don't think," I said, assuming that she meant Clownpiece. "By the end, she was just ranting about how we all need to die. Hecatia kind of... showed up in the middle, though, and gave her that giant moon."

Reimu frowned, though I got the feeling she wasn't so much concerned about Hecatia. After a few more moments in thought, she said, "With any luck, she's dead for good since we're in another universe, but..."

But...?

Huh? Dead for good?

...Wait.

I wanted to smack my forehead. Maybe it was because she was a little taller and had her wings ripped off, but I'd completely forgotten that Clownpiece was a fairy - meaning the scenario I'd imagined back on the Palanquin was staring us in the face. Was Clownpiece really dead? I mean, the Hell of this universe was probably wiped out, too, right? She couldn't have resurrected there. But if being in another universe from her original one didn't matter, or if she had some other trick...

"Well, if she comes back, I'll get her myself," said Marisa, who I noticed was holding and rubbing her mini-Hakkero with both hands. The nervousness in her fingers betrayed the smile on her face - she was feeling something over this, all right, not that I could quite tell what. Noticing my stare, she grinned at me and said, "Try not to steal my kill next time, all right? I got more bones to pick than you."

Just like Reisen did with Mayumi.

Whether it was Mayumi or Clownpiece or Seija, the Alternates all seemed to have a way of getting under our skin. Even though I'd been able to act in spite of my doubts, those doubts were still there; I got someone killed by acting on emotion, and even if I never made that mistake again, there was always the possibility that someone else would.

Marisa's grin turned apprehensive, and she said, "Uh, I was just joking. Why do ya look so worried now?"

"Because you're worrying him," said Reimu, crossing her arms and staring down at Clownpiece instead of us. "It's not like you to hate."

...Yeah. It's not like her at all. Not that I could blame her, but this whole thing was having a pretty bad effect on all of us. Marisa grimaced at Reimu's words, then put away her mini-Hakkero and said, "Yeah, well, she made it personal, ze. I mean, imagine if it was Sariel, right? Uh-" Marisa paused and stumbled over what she was about to say, and I saw Reimu's eyes flick back towards hers, expressionless. Marisa pursed her lips, breathed in through her nose, and said, "...Sorry. I shouldn'ta said that. Dang it, you're right, this ain't how I oughta be lookin' at it."

Marisa pulled up her hands and started massaging the back of her head like she was looking for a reset button, squinting all the while. Reimu just shrugged and said, "Go ahead and hate them if you want to. I hate them, too."

It'd be a pretty tall order for any of us not to hate the Alternates after all they did. I may have worried about Marisa just then, but she wasn't like Reisen - even now, she was still the logical one. I didn't have to be afraid of her doing something stupid and risking all our lives, which might have been called something like trust. That was at least one advantage we had over the Alternates. Maybe that trust wasn't absolute, but it at least made me want to be a more reliable person so that everyone else could trust me back.

Marisa shook her head. "Nah, I'm gonna try and forget about it. Anyway, Seija probably knows something about reviving across universes. How about we just go ask her, ze?" With those short words, she took off for the edge of the track without waiting for us - Reimu appeared to lose interest, but I couldn't let that one slide. I shouldered the bat and walked after her, almost running to catch up.

"Hey, now," I said. "Is that really something you can just forget about?"

"It ain't like I'll really forget. Ain't no point in dwelling on it, though." Marisa turned her head to the side and grinned at me again. "Sorry, were you hopin' for a chance to console me? I'll cry into your shoulder later if you want."

"Don't even joke about that. I'm just not convinced that you're really all right. I mean, Reisen-"

"Aw, don't care so much, Kyon. You'll make me fall for ya." Marisa's grin didn't fade, but she looked forward again. "Reisen ain't dumb, either. She won't mess things up for us, and neither will I. We know this is too important for that."

I'm glad you can trust her so much, but... No, wait, this isn't even about that.

"Listen, Kyon. I think you oughta prepare yourself. We might be facing Nagato next, right?"

"...If she'll even fight us, yeah. I'm... prepared for it." I wasn't sure if that was a lie or not, but it felt like one.

Marisa was quiet for a moment, and then nodded to herself. "You lose if you let it get to ya. The moment you lose your fear of the unknown and start actin' on your heart, that's when you lose. Someone already taught me that a long time ago."

"I don't know if being afraid in a life-and-death battle is the best thing to do," I said. Not that I can die right now. "Anyway, it seems counter-productive for a youkai exterminator to be afraid of youkai."

"That's where you're wrong. If ya wanna keep your life, you've gotta be afraid - that's how humans can be strong, ya get me?"

I didn't, and I didn't have time to ask what that meant, because it was at that moment we came within spitting distance of Seija, and I had to step out of the way as a literal glob of spit came hurtling at me from the front. Half of a dead tree stood up past the edge of the track, split down the middle; and hanging upside down in the middle of that crevice with her calves curled around the edges at the top and her skirt was Seija. Her skirt was dangling straight up in the air in defiance of gravity, but her hair was drooping down towards the freshly-rebandaged Koizumi seated at the base of the tree. The two of them had been talking for quite a while by this point.

"I missed," groaned Seija. "You owe me a hundred."

Were you betting that you wouldn't hit me? How does that make any - No, before that, just don't spit at people! Shrugging in defeat, Koizumi produced a hundred-yen coin and tossed it behind him at Seija, who caught it between two fingers and then chucked it at my head. This time, I could not dodge it, and it smacked me hard enough to hurt.

...Which triggered a reset. I was back to the second after she'd spat at me.

What the hell, Seija.

"If you throw that at me," I warned her as she caught the coin the second time around, "I'm going to tell Reisen to stare at you for the next hundred years."

"Huh? Why would I throw this at you? It's money, idiot." Seija dropped an eyebrow and stuck out her tongue, pretending transparently that she was never planning on doing any such thing. Or maybe I was the only one who knew better.

Nobody even uses yen in Gensokyo, do they...? Never mind. If I try to understand her logic, I'll go insane.

"Yo," said Marisa, raising a hand to wave at them like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "You two seem to have hit it off, eh?"

Koizumi smiled back, taking it all in stride. "It isn't much that will be useful to us now, but I've learned a good deal about the enemy's methods and history."

"Most of it was lies, though," said Seija with a dull smirk. Koizumi didn't react to that information, but I could imagine that trying to get a straight story out of Seija might have been the only thing more painful than his current physical state. Speaking of which - How the hell aren't you screaming in pain yet? There's no way you're still running on adrenaline by now.

Well, I could have asked, but I decided it was better right now to stay on one topic. Namely: "Anything about Clownpiece? We're not sure if she's able to revive or not."

Koizumi, as if expecting the question, glanced up at Seija, who just flexed her hand and said, "Dunno. Ain't seen any fairies die outside their own universe yet. The ones that got made into clay probably won't come back, though."

I remembered the clay Cirno from the earlier battle and silently hoped that Seija was right. One loose Alternate would have been bad enough. I looked back at Clownpiece - Reimu was waving her gohei back and forth in some kind of ritual above the snow pile, possibly trying to seal her. Maybe that would work, if nothing else.

"Are we even sure the rules are the same?" I asked. "The Alternates made a bunch of them somehow in order to mess around and experiment, right? So maybe in some worlds she can, and some she can't. How would we know if it works in this one?"

A twinkle of interest appeared in Seija's dead-fish stare, and she hummed to herself instead of answering my question. "Is that what you guys call us? Alternates?"

Well, what else do you expect? I shrugged and said, "Isn't that what you are? From our perspective, at least. If you have a real name, no one's told us."

"Do you have one?" asked Koizumi, looking a little too interested.

Seija let her hands fall, stretching out like a banner on the side of the tree. "Sure, kinda. I don't know if you noticed, but we've kind of got a theme going on." With a grunt, she swung her hands upward, followed by her whole body, and inverted herself so that she was standing up and balancing on the top of the half-trunk. Running a hand through her hair, she cracked another grin and said, "After everything went down, Mayumi wouldn't talk about anything other than justice for her master. Jinwu was in it to avenge her sisters from the start, and Junko, well, she's Junko. One way or another, we ended up calling ourselves Hecatia's Furies. She hated it, but it stuck anyway. Heh."

Ah, Furies. As in, the Greek goddesses of vengeance. Yeah, makes sense. And judging by the slightly demeaning tone of it...

"I was the one who came up with that, by the way," she said, pointing to herself. "Man, it was like mocking Hecatia to her face. Heh heh heh." Seija laughed without humor, grasping her wrist as her hand continued opening and closing on its own.

...Yep, I knew it.

"And you include yourself in that label?" asked Koizumi. "As a deity of vengeance?"

Seija's dull eyes twitched slightly in Koizumi's direction, and she said, "Me? Nah. Who the hell would I want to get revenge on?"

...Hecatia, right? Because in your mind, she made you kill people. Knowing Seija, she'd definitely want to blame her actions on someone else. That was my first thought, but Koizumi had a different idea, and he voiced it without missing a beat.

"Perhaps yourself?"

Seija didn't answer; just looked away, her interest in talking further now gone.

The more we learned about our enemy, the more complicated everything seemed to get. I suppose that's natural when your enemy is hundreds of years old. At least now, we had something like a real name to put to them - the Furies. A bit late now that only two or three of them were left, but still something.

Geez. This really is coming to an end. I'm right here, staring at the finish line, and it happens to be North High. I know she's waiting for us, in the Brigade clubroom. Hecatia is going to be there. It began here, and it will end here. I watched as the snow fell around campus, numbly remembering again that it was Christmas Eve. Was it the same day here, too, I wondered? Not that it mattered in a world without people, where concepts like that could no longer exist. I had pictured the destruction of a universe like a pin popping a balloon, but maybe all that really needed to happen was the destruction of Earth. If humans aren't around to imagine them, Heaven and Hell can't exist either... At least, that was how it seemed to work.

"As to your earlier question," Koizumi began once it was clear that Seija was done talking, "I think it is reasonable to assume that most of the fundamental rules are the same between the worlds created by the Alternates. Or the Furies, if you like. The previous universes have all been minor variations only; our enemy was searching for some combination of factors that would make Suzumiya's power compatible with Hecatia, and their methods of altering us were, at times, quite blunt." His eyes went briefly to Marisa, and I remembered what Chiyuri had discovered about Mayumi; that she didn't have the power to shape us from afar like poking at a petri dish, and that meant neither did Clownpiece. Whatever her objective was, she had to go about it by killing Marisa's mother herself.

All that to try and get Haruhi to behave. Congratulations Haruhi, your ridiculousness has stumped a group of maniacs for centuries.

Either way, what it meant was that something as fundamental as whether a fairy could revive had to be the same across all of the universes, at least in theory. That meant there were two possibilities here: Either Clownpiece was being resurrected in her home universe right now, or she'd have to be resurrected in this universe's Hell, which if it even still existed, would be as desolate and dead as this town. If fortune smiled on us for once, that would mean she couldn't revive and she was dead for good.

Still... For a bunch of universal travelers to go that far, something still bugged me. "You'd think they'd find a universe with more convenient rules," I said. "Aren't there supposed to be an infinite number of them or something?"

Like, every time a quantum particle moves, it creates a new universe for every possible state? That would mean there are lots of Hecatias and Clownpieces, wouldn't there...?

Koizumi tilted his head in a slight shrug. "That is the many-worlds interpretation... however, the existence of inter-universal travel precludes that theory. If it were true that a nigh-infinite number of universes exist and can be accessed, then there would be an infinite number of universes invading our universe all the time. And if Hecatia's goal of combining all universes forever into one is remotely possible, then in that scenario it would already have happened an infinite number of times. I think we'd know if that were the case, wouldn't you?"

That's... true... I mean, if I were a slider or something that wanted Haruhi's power, I'd probably just head for a universe where it's sitting on a table inside an envelope that happened to have my name on it. So if there weren't that many universes... "Then, what makes a universe exist in the first place?"

Under any other circumstance, asking a question like that and expecting an answer would be the height of naïveté. Scientists and philosophers have debated that question since the dawn of mankind. However, since I happened to know that the dawn of mankind was theoretically only a few years ago and one of the people responsible for it was present, I think I can be forgiven just this once. Unfortunately, Seija still wasn't talking to us, and Koizumi's only answer was to raise his bandage-wrapped arms in a shrug and say, "That, I don't know."

...Well, it was worth a shot.

"Eh? That's a funny lie, little guy." Seija suddenly spoke up, twisting her head and shoulders around to leer at Koizumi from her high perch. A hint of amusement came through her monotone. "Going to hide the truth from your friends?"

Koizumi's face stayed frozen, except for his eyebrows, which furrowed slightly in irritation at Seija's interjection. After a short, awkward moment, he replied, "There's nothing to hide. Until we find the proof, my theories are groundless. Or are you saying you'd like to tell us all the answer now?"

Uh... What's going on now? The sudden tension between Seija and Koizumi seemed to come from nowhere, and I started to get the feeling that their chat up until now had been more fruitful than I'd thought. Seija put on a lazy sneer and turned away, saying, "Why should I? You figured it out. Tell 'em if you want to, or don't, it's got nothing to do with me."

"Hold on," I said. "Do you know how they're creating new universes? What were you guys talking about? Isn't that kind of important?"

Koizumi stood up and rolled his shoulders, ignoring my question. He walked forward as serene as a Buddha, and put his hand on my shoulder, leaning in to murmur in my ear, "It's not important. Please believe me when I say that we need to focus on the here and now."

He did know something. Why the hell couldn't he come out with it? We'd already gone through Hell and learned so much unbelievable stuff, I doubted anything could shock me at this point. He have told me that this was all a big reality show and this whole universe was a TV set I'd have said, "Yep, that makes sense." Hell, I kind of wished he'd say that. A cop-out ending like "it was all a dream" might at least have put things back to normal.

"We're not that fragile," I said. If whatever he was holding back had even the tiniest relevance... But his face right now told me that he really was trusting his better judgment. He wanted to tell us, but for whatever reason, he had decided that he wouldn't.

"If I am right, we'll find something in the school that will confirm it. I'd just rather not get carried away with speculation, that's all."

That's a big, fat lie and you know it. You love making wild guesses. Despite that, I couldn't argue. It true that we needed to focus, and it was especially true that whatever information Seija had been feeding him could have been a way for her to mislead us. Despite her personality and how she'd helped us take out Clownpiece, there was always the possibility that she was just infiltrating us for Hecatia.

"Fine," I said. "When we find that proof though, you'd better tell me."

Koizumi's head dropped a bit. "I think the proof will speak for itself," he said, letting go of my shoulder and walking past. When I turned around, I noticed that Reimu had finished her little ritual and joined Asakura in the middle of the track, where a gap was being forced gradually open in midair. It looked like our reinforcements were almost through.

I guess we're out of time anyway. Somehow, I didn't feel like I'd had much of a break, but then again I'd spent most of it on my feet like a fool. I was the last person who should complain about it, though, so I squared up and followed Koizumi to the gap together with Marisa, who was still being quiet and thinking to herself. I wondered if maybe she'd caught on to some part of what Koizumi was hiding, or if her thoughts were still centered on Clownpiece.

The gap had almost fully opened when we all finished assembling to greet our new comrades. The opaque void within had fallen away, and Yukari's eyes were staring back at us from deep within, proving that the connection had been made, and it wasn't long before Tenshi burst through, surrounded by a corona of brilliant rain light that washed out of the gap like water from a burst pipe.

"Rejoice, all of you!" Tenshi shouted as she strutted onto the track like she was a supermodel on a catwalk. "Your time of suffering is over, because I'M FINALLY HERE!" She punched her fist into the air, grinning at the rest of us and taking in the desolate landscape as though it were a pure and beautiful vista. Behind her, Sakuya slid out of the gap and alighted with at least twice as much grace, giving us all a light bow and a smile without saying anything. Her delicate hands were wrapped around the head of the familiar needle gun that Nagato had promised to send along, perhaps wisely with her instead of Tenshi, though Tenshi also had brought in a rather large cloth package that was dangling from her left hand.

Apparently immune to the dire atmosphere in which we'd been immersed until just now, Tenshi started clapping and cheering, "Bravo, bravo, all of you! I heard all about your battles from Hell! I'd have taken them down much quicker, of course, but you all did very well to come this far! I'd expect nothing less of the people who were able to beat me when they ganged up together!" She added the last part rather blatantly, making sure we all knew who was going to be the star from now on. Despite being the shortest person here by at least a head, Tenshi somehow seemed to stand head and shoulders above the rest of us by her stage presence alone. The sudden imposition kind of irked me, but at the same time, I was more than happy to let her take all the credit if it meant we'd get out of this alive. At least her bluster wasn't empty like Cirno's, and I knew how powerful Sakuya was in her own right.

Yeah. Weirdly enough, I feel a lot better now that these two are here. Everyone else seemed to share my thoughts, looking more relieved than annoyed. Well, except Seija - her eyes were narrowed, looking more like she was contemplating what kind of prank she should pull on our new heavy hitter. Meanwhile, Sakuya's smile faded as she looked out at the ruined town, taking advantage of Tenshi's attention-hogging to slip past us and get a better look outside of our welcoming half-circle. She had to have known what to expect, but... well, it was a shock for me when I first saw it. It'd be sobering for almost anyone.

Koizumi started sucking up to Tenshi immediately as if on instinct, saying, "We're all pleased to have you, Miss Hinanai. If I may be bold, I'm glad you only joined us now - Clownpiece turned us against each other, and I shudder to think what may have happened if you were affected by her ability."

The thought didn't seem to have occurred to Tenshi, and she stopped in her tracks. "Ah, yeah..." After a moment's realization, she suddenly beamed, becoming even more insufferably cheerful. "Yeah, yeah! You're totally right! Man, those two really are smart, thinking of that!" She laughed to the heavens and Koizumi's eyes ballooned to triple size as she slapped him heartily on the back, seemingly not noticing his injuries; the pain of it broke through his façade, his eyes slamming shut and his mouth opening wide like he was about to scream. The sight of it made me and everyone else who was watching cringe - except Seija, who devolved into a silent giggling fit - but Tenshi was oblivious, as she turned her back on him immediately to approach me instead.

Please don't hurt me. I took a step back, but she continued forward, gripping my shoulder and saying, "How's my sword, Kyon? You've been using a real celestial's power without supervision for a while now, so I hope you've been treating it well!"

"I, uh, it's been helpful," I managed to say. "Thanks again for letting me borrow it." Just... just say whatever makes her happy. If we get out of this alive, I don't care if she takes all the credit. I turned to Sakuya, half out of courtesy and half to escape from Tenshi, and said, "Thanks for your help, as well." Sakuya answered me with a weak smile and nod, still not saying anything.

"We're all together now. Let's get a move on," interrupted Reimu, turning towards the school building and pushing Marisa to start walking with her. Tenshi looked back at her, frowned a bit, then shouted so all of us could hear.

"Agreed! Everyone, follow me! I'll do the fighting from now on, so you just support me!" With that declaration, she caught up to Reimu and began marching ahead of her, asserting her rightful place in no uncertain terms as our one true leader. This isn't going to be a headache, I hope.

The rest of us followed, some more eagerly than others, heading for the school building and whatever was waiting for us there.

"Quite a game you're playing here."

Kasen's voice roused Yukari from her thoughts, and her silhouette shadowed the chessboard that she and Eirin had been mulling over. Kasen's body was stiff, anticipating conflict; but Yukari had no want for a fight with her, so she mustered up a sunny smile and asked, "Were you wanting to play, too?"

Something seemed to unnerve Kasen, and she folded her arms defensively. "Come on. Anyone can tell you're not just playing shogi here. What's really happening? I know you're under some pressure right now, but none of us like being in the dark."

Oh my, Kasen - do you not even know about chess? Yukari tittered at her friend's unexpected ignorance, and even Eirin chuckled a bit. Afraid that they'd offend her, Yukari raised one hand to assure her, saying, "I'm afraid you'll have to bear with it for a little while. We're actually reworking the strategy right now - these things are quite complicated, you know?"

"Which is part of the problem," Eirin added. "Either way, we'll win. You can be assured that we'll come out of this with a perfect victory. I'll stake my name on it." Her voice was calm and determined, a level of boldness by which Yukari couldn't help but be impressed. It was so bold, in fact, that Yukari had a hard time of deciding whether she was inspired to see it rewarded or punished. It might have been funny to sabotage the victory just a little bit... but alas, that couldn't be allowed to happen, so Yukari would have to settle for protecting her ally's courage instead.

Kasen watched as Yukari hid a mischievous smirk behind her folding fan. "Yes, a perfect victory would be typical of the Lunar Capital," said Kasen, her voice coated in suspicion. "We small and impure people of the Earth, though - we're not so magnificent as to pull off something like that. In fact, some of us are so impure that we are inclined to sacrifice our pawns instead. That would be more in keeping with our history, wouldn't it?"

Whatever made Kasen so hostile right now, it was a mystery to Yukari. There was no need for her to pick a fight, but if she'd go that far, then there'd be no choice but to answer it. Yukari watched her with a steel gaze, keeping the fan still in front of her face, and replied, "My dear Kasen, are you talking to me about one's past deeds?"

Kasen's face flushed, and she held her tongue for a few moments more. Eirin quirked a brow at the exchange, now surely catching on that the two of them had a past. Recollecting her wits, Kasen leaned forward, planting a hand on an empty part of the chessboard, and bowled ahead with her point: "This plan of yours didn't always have Eirin on board. You've been trying to save everyone from the beginning. Why? And what is it going to cost us, Yukari? That's what I want to know."

Kasen, since when do you mistrust me so much? Yukari couldn't remember if there was anything in particular. It had been decades at least since they had last met, and as far as she knew, the two of them had always been on the same side. It seemed Kasen had grown more judgmental since the old times, at least. For now, Yukari could only surrender. "When I find out, I'll let you know," she said with a small shrug. "I really do wish I could tell you, but it seems like I'll have plans for our ignorance later. All I can do is trust in my future judgment."

Kasen stood up straight and shut her eyes. "I knew it. You're time traveling," she grumbled.

Eirin frowned. "Did you expect her not to? Time is a powerful weapon, and not to be squandered if we've the means to command it."

"That's precisely the wrong attitude!" Kasen nearly shouted, opening her eyes to glare at Eirin and pointing her bandaged finger in an authoritative gesture. "Do you not understand what this means? For there to be a future version of Yukari, there has to be a future to come back from!"

"Yes, thank you, I know how time works," said Eirin flatly.

"I know the way you think, Yukari," Kasen continued, ignoring Eirin. "I want to believe this is just a hunch, but... You are trying to save our universe, aren't you?"

Aren't I? I certainly think so. Yukari tilted her head, puzzled but intrigued by Kasen's words. Yukari was sure that she knew herself - she'd gone to many pains to ensure that the other Yukari was herself and not an Alternate. "Kasen, you're not making sense. What am I doing if not saving us all?"

"Saving us all is the suspicious part. The part that isn't you. Did your future self come from a world where we lost? If so, why would she be going out of her way to preserve every one of us, rather than sacrificing us for the greater good? And if she came from a world where we won instead - why come back at all?" Kasen pointed at Eirin, but kept her eyes on Yukari, her eyes filled with a ferocity that Yukari was beginning to understand. "We are not perfect beings who can win a war without casualties," she said. "If our victory came at a price, would you accept it? You wouldn't put everything at risk by changing the outcome, would you?"

Would I?

Yukari was no stranger to making sacrifices. She did not share in the Lunarian obsession with perfection - her Gensokyo was chaos, and chaos was beautiful. This was something that she and Kasen had agreed upon once, long ago. And yet, if the other Yukari really was her future self, she would soon become occupied with nothing less than a flawless victory. No - perhaps it wasn't perfection she was after, but something more specific. When she tried to imagine what that might be...

...There might be a reason.

"So in the end, what you're saying is that my future self is making an unnecessary gamble?" said Yukari. "That I could not accept victory, and had to rewrite all of time in order to change how things happened?"

Kasen's eyes narrowed. "Is that the case?"

If Kyon's resurrection hadn't happened...

Yukari closed her fan, smiling brightly back at Kasen. "Who can say?"

Kasen wasn't pleased by the answer, but she couldn't say anything more. Her expression grew darker, and she avoided Yukari's eyes; Yukari saw fear and pain beneath that face.

"The Wheel of Fortune may be overturned," mused Eirin, now carefully watching Kasen and Yukari, "but that doesn't mean fate will favor you in the end."

"But if it meant your mistakes could be erased?" asked Yukari.

Eirin smiled. "Then of course I'd retry it as many times as I had to. A perfect victory, or a perfect defeat - nothing else is acceptable."

"Ridiculous," muttered Kasen. "Ridiculous and irresponsible. We're talking about the universe."

No... If I'm right, then we're talking about something much smaller than that.

Yukari said nothing more, contemplating to herself as she watched the chess pieces. Somehow, Kasen had seen something she hadn't, and the stakes were much more dear.

Nagato hated being here. Sitting under the tree between two rows of school buildings, beneath the snow and the dark clouds and the window of that clubroom; she hated to be here, surrounded by all the things she loved. Her headphones drowned out the sound of the wind, and her eyes and thoughts were occupied by the screen of a portable game console. As long as her mind was in the world on the screen, it wouldn't be here, and as long as she wasn't here, she would be just fine.

Even though it was Christmas.

The game must have had a seasonal feature tied to the console's clock, because everything in it was decorated with colored lights and holly. Snow was piled up in places it normally wasn't, characters were delivering Christmas-related lines, and all sorts of new Christmas features had been unlocked for a limited time. It was disgustingly festive. At least if she left the main areas, the game looked normal. Her fingers unconsciously wrapped around the strap of a snowman-shaped ornament that dangled from a loop on the corner of the console.

She'd gotten that on Christmas, too. He touched her hand when he gave it to her. She'd always remember that, and that was what she hated most of all. Only good things ever happened on Christmas.

Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.

Wasn't there someone with him that never thought about anything? If only she could do that. If only she could close her own heart just like closing an eye. Do everything thoughtlessly, the way that she did. Steal everything from someone else the way that she did. Intrude on everyone else's happiness the way that she did. At least she wasn't in this world. No, he was surrounded by other girls now, but at least none of them were her.

She brushed aside the snow that had collected on the screen with her thumb, leaving a larger trail of moisture than it usually did. The insides of her glasses had gotten wet, too. She powered off the game, no longer able to keep her thoughts inside it, and put it down to wipe off her glasses with the sleeve of her coat. She didn't even feel the cold.

It's over soon. It'll all be over and she'll be gone, and I'll never have to think about it ever again.

He didn't matter anymore. His new friends didn't matter. So what if the rest of the Furies had gone off and died already? They never mattered, either. All they had ever done was judge her. The only thing that mattered now was her. The only thing that mattered was getting back at her. After that - who could guess? Maybe in another world, she would meet the one who wrote her this way. She'd love to get back at him, too. And then, in Hecatia's world, they could live a happy life together. That, she thought, was the way a story should end.

We can write our own stories now. You'll never be part of my world again.

Happily ever after.

The end.

Nagato replaced her glasses and wrapped her arms around her body, coming back into the present and all its bitterness. She stayed where she was, beneath the tree, and waited.

Soon after we started moving, Tenshi suddenly remembered the package she was carrying and untied the knot on top of it, saying that Yukari had sent supplies along for everyone. There were mushroom blocks, more peaches, more flash bangs, some extra medical supplies for Reisen, and for some reason, a single plastic baggie that looked empty from where I was standing. We all partook of what we could, keeping our energy and morale as high as we could manage under the circumstances. Magic mushrooms and peaches were still not complimentary flavors, but I made do. Shanghai and Hourai fell in step with me, and so did Koishi, when I could remember that she was even there.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Reimu spoke to me in a hard tone, having acquiesced the leading role to Tenshi in order to walk beside me instead. There was only one thing she could have been talking about, and to be honest, I didn't know the answer quite yet.

"As much as I can be," I said, still trying to keep down what I'd eaten. "I mean, you did something like this too, right? I know there was a clay Marisa back there. If you can go through that, so can I." Not that I know who killed her, but...

Reimu looked like she was about as convinced as I was. "If you say so," she said, putting the matter to rest regardless. When I thought about it, she was right to be concerned about me specifically; I was the only one of us who came from anything resembling a normal world. Even Koizumi had to battle with giant celestials all the time. With as much death as I'd seen up to now, I still wasn't immune to it, and that was something that put me behind everyone else. Reimu sure never seemed to bat an eye at killing her friends.

...Stop thinking about what Seija said. She's just doing what she has to, same as always. It doesn't make her a monster.

With any luck, I wouldn't have to be the one to go through with it anyway. It was mostly because of the circumstances that I'd finished off Junko and Clownpiece, and now with all of us together, it was probably going to be Tenshi, Sakuya, and Reimu who did the bulk of the fighting. Thinking that way, I heard a part of my brain accuse me of being a coward for not wanting to face the alternate Nagato myself, but really, it was just being realistic.

[Asakura:] "I'm sure everyone is ready now. Since you'll die if you aren't, there's no point in worrying about it now, right?"

Is that supposed to be encouragement? Asakura still couldn't talk to us without being unnecessarily creepy. I was pretty sure she wasn't like that back when I thought she was human, but maybe that's one of those things people overlook when you're the popular girl. It sure seemed to bother Reimu, who shot a hard look behind us at where Asakura was walking.

"You probably want us to die anyway," she said bitterly. "If it's someone Suzumiya knows, you'd just call that good data or something, right?"

I mean, she did save us...

[Asakura:] "Hmm? But Haruhi Suzumiya is already going to have a reaction. There's no going back from what she's experienced. Why would it matter if someone dies now? Our group has already won."

So it seemed. The radical faction that Asakura was part of just wanted to poke the bear, and the bear was well and truly poked. I didn't much want to consider the possibility that we might save the universe only to have Haruhi cause some kind of catastrophe by accident, but there was a significant chance that it might come to pass.

"If that happens, I'll just sock her until she's ready to give up!" declared Tenshi, pounding her palm with a fist. "You guys couldn't defeat her, but for a celestial-"

"No, I think she's a few steps even above you," said Marisa, suddenly looking nervous. I honestly wasn't sure what would happen if someone actually tried to fight Haruhi - I mean, she wasn't exactly a judo master and it seemed like people could kidnap her just fine, but something crazy would probably happen as a result of it anyway, and it wouldn't be good for any of us. I looked for Koizumi to get his reaction, but he seemed to be busy thinking about something else. Or maybe he was also wondering what Haruhi could do in a fight.

"I think you're all underestimating Haruhi in more ways than one," I said. "If she can believe in group hypnosis, she'll believe this was all a dream. One hundred percent." I had to be confident in that, if nothing else.

[Nagato:] "Seventy six rounded down. As a rough estimate."

That still sounds good to me. Group hypnosis working had way lower odds than that!

As we climbed the steps back up to the school proper, our morale rose with us, at least a little bit. Saying that we had this in the bag would have been jumping the gun, but our allies were growing in number as our enemies diminished, and we'd thrown them a few curve balls as well. We had Seija on our side, and Hecatia still couldn't have known about my taking the elixir. For once, we were all feeling hopeful.

"You know what? I don't want to fight her, anyway." Tenshi waved a dismissive hand, avoiding the topic of Haruhi's position over her, and changed to a new track. "The world could use an injection of fun! Isn't that the whole point of her silly club?" She turned around at the top of the stairs to look at us, walking backwards while we pressed on. When Koizumi and I came up over the edge, she pointed at us and said, "Your world needs saving from boredom, and that means filling it with the unknown!"

Yeah, maybe if we could guarantee it wouldn't kill us... That was my knee-jerk reaction, but it really wasn't my place to argue one way or the other. After all, I'd once told her to her face that she had power, and if I said the world was better off without the supernatural, wouldn't that just make me a hypocrite?

"If that happened, Gensokyo might not need a barrier anymore, right?" Sanae threw the question to Reimu, who just shrugged non-committally in response.

I couldn't imagine what the world would be like if Gensokyo were opened up. As far as I knew, the Great Hakurei Barrier was essential to its very existence, but if Haruhi's presence meant that the supernatural could live on in a world that didn't believe in it... Well, maybe I'd at least get to visit more often. That'd be something, right? If Haruhi could will our worlds to mesh, would that be so bad? I watched Reimu walk ahead of us again and Tenshi pick up her stride to match, almost to the wall of one of the school buildings. I imagined how they might get along in our world in the long term... and immediately imagined them trying to start a spell card duel in a crowded city.

...Yeah, on second thought, maybe a world made of Haruhi is too much for ours to handle.

As soon as the two of them reached the building, Reimu made a left and Tenshi, disregarding her entirely, started walking right. Reimu made it two paces before she realized that they were going in opposite directions and called out, "Hey, where are you going? Let's go this way."

"This way's faster," said Tenshi, not slowing down. "I know how this place is laid out. What, did you pick a direction to wander at random?" She turned her head to grin at Reimu condescendingly, and Reimu blushed - apparently, Tenshi was right.

"Hecatia's probably in the clubroom, so that direction's the fastest," I said to Reimu, indicating the way that Tenshi was going. Reimu opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it and started walking quickly after Tenshi in a huff.

The rest of us sped up a bit to try and catch up to them, and Youmu and Marisa both got ahead of me. "Don't turn corners without checking them!" Reisen shouted to our vanguard, but Tenshi pretended like she couldn't hear her. She passed the edge of the wall without a care, turning in towards the space between the buildings. Reimu came up behind her, walking out a bit further so she could see around Tenshi-

And what happened next felt like it happened in slow motion.

Tenshi turned her head to jeer at Reimu, still in a good mood. Reimu's embarrassed scowl, however, vanished in an instant. She flung her right arm forward, two amulets sailing out of her sleeve at something ahead, and her left arm, she threw out behind her at Marisa and Youmu.

She opened her mouth to shout something...

I blinked.

And then everything was red.

It reached the farthest wall, snow around us, and splashed on me - an endless red that appeared where Tenshi, Reimu, Youmu, and Marisa had just been. My own hands were red, and everyone started shouting, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

[Nagato]: "W*** i* s**?"

[Asakura:] "I c*'** t**. S**'* b******* m*."

Sanae wrapped her hand around my upper arm, screaming white noise. Her face was red, too.

[Nagato:] "W*** a** y** d****? R****."

And then-

[Asakura:] "I'** t*** c*** o* i*."

I felt something penetrate my back, and when I turned my head to look, Asakura's smiling face brought me somewhat back to reality. I tried to open my mouth, but my pierced lungs tightened around the thing she was sticking into me, and then the world slipped back to a few seconds before.

How-

[Nagato:] "This is no time to be in shock."

Tenshi was about to step out of cover. Reimu, stiff-shouldered, was stalking after her. I realized where I was, and that once again, I had only a few seconds to act.

What just happened?

I started moving, half without realizing it. I broke into a sprint at Tenshi, shouting, "Stop!" and trying to reach her before she passed the wall. She didn't stop - she just puffed herself up more and kept walking, and I realized I was too far to catch her.

She thinks she doesn't have to be careful. She thinks she's strong enough.

But she's going to-

Before I could say or do anything else, Sakuya popped into the space in front of Tenshi just before the edge of the wall, holding one hand on her collar with a severe look on her face. Tenshi stopped, more out of surprise than anything, and stared at her, wide-eyed. Slowly, Sakuya's lips spread into a soft smile, and she said, "I think you should wait for the rest of us."

Yes! Thank you, Sakuya!

"What? If someone attacks, it's better if they attack me, right?" Tenshi rolled her eyes, but turned and waited for me to catch up. Not really having a plan, I set down my bat against the building, then grabbed her shoulders and pulled her - or more like she let herself be pulled - up to the wall next to it, where I took a moment to breathe out and try to figure out what the hell just happened and what I should say.

They just... liquefied. Instantly, all at the same time.

Jinwu and Junko had both done this to us before, so I thought I could handle it... but this was different. It was instantaneous, simultaneous, and seeing them burst into a red paste up close... I felt myself get sick just remembering it, and the sickness start to fade just as quickly as it came. The nanomachines must have been struggling to keep me sane and lucid. Tenshi started getting nervous when I didn't say anything, but I still couldn't formulate any coherent words.

[Asakura:] "I think she knows we're here now."

You think?! I was starting to panic. I still had no idea how to handle an alternate Nagato, if that really was what we were facing. Even getting close enough to use the needle gun would be impossible now. Some way of approaching her... Stopping time doesn't work on them, and neither would distracting her...

[Asakura:] "What I mean is, I can't hold the building for much longer."

The building?

Right on cue, a piece of the wall exploded right behind Sakuya, who jumped back in time to avoid being exposed. Little pieces on the edge of the wall were starting to fray, like an invisible black hole was pressing against it and disintegrating it a little bit at a time. Asakura's hands were stretched out towards it, and she had a look of exertion on her face; right now, that same invisible force that erased four of us was fighting against her to erase our only cover.

Oh, no.

I searched blindly for an option, settling on the needle gun that Sakuya was protecting. Can she get in range without her time stops? Maybe Seija would be sneakier? Maybe Asakura, if she can resist it long enough? My mind raced as the side of the building began to crumble. Pretty much everyone would be a better candidate than me. Heck, the last time I held that gun, I wasn't able to use it on Nagato. Even against a version of her from another universe, my weaknesses were psychological as much as physical.

I can't just be afraid, though. What would have happened if I'd just stood there in shock, and wasn't able to reset far enough?

An idea crept into my mind then, and I remembered what Seija had told us earlier. The Nagato we were fighting wore glasses, and that likely meant this was a Nagato that had changed the world for her sake and mine. Back then, Nagato had given me a way out because she doubted the choice she'd made. The new version of herself that lived in that world was timid and meek. Whether she was human or a humanoid interface, the Nagato of that time had acted on fear, and though I'd no way of knowing how the time between then and now might have changed her, my hunch was that she and I might have something in common. A deadly weakness that could be the end of either one of us.

Might as well try it. Even if I'm pretty much just standing up for a sniper...

"Everyone, stay here," I said, trying to teach my legs a bit of courage so they'd move again. "Sakuya, can I have that repair gun thing?"

"Kyon, what's happening?" Reisen, who'd dropped to a prone position, spoke from the ground. It must've been obvious that I knew more than them, but I didn't have time to explain it.

"I need to try something. Whatever you do, don't go out in the open. Don't even peek, all right?!" I met each of their eyes to make sure they understood, including Shanghai and Hourai. Tenshi was naturally the most resistant to the idea, but the fact I'd pinned her to the wall seemed to get through even her. Sakuya handed me the needle gun, and without waiting, without taking any time to doubt myself, I forced myself to run out from behind the wall and expose myself.

At least if I die, it won't hurt this time! That was pretty much what I had to keep repeating to make myself move. I walked forward, heedless of where I was going, turned the corner and walked straight under the second floor connecting passage between the buildings. I walked, and I walked, and when I realized that I still hadn't reset, I stopped walking and actually had a look at what was in front of me.

...And there she was.

Like a scene out of my past, sitting in the snow beneath of one of the trees that stood between the two school buildings. Like the rest of the school, it was perfectly intact and still alive in mockery of the dead landscape beyond. The girl whose voice was in my head, her arms curled around her knees, wearing her winter coat over the North High girl's uniform, and a pair of glasses that had long since been dropped as part of her character. Behind them, her eyes were wide and fearful, uncomprehending what she was seeing; that being me, and nothing else. I could tell by the way that the wall had stopped crumbling behind me; she was caught completely off-guard.

So it's true. You're willing to kill anybody else. No, you'd probably resolved to kill even me, but actually doing it...

...Just like I was.

She stared at me breathlessly, her hands trembling on her knees. This was the next girl I had to kill; I knew that very well. Both of us knew what we had to do.

And yet...

She's not going to be frozen like this forever. I have to be the one to act first. I had expected, or more like hoped for her to have this reaction, but... it felt strong. Too strong even for the Nagato I'd met in the world she remade. For me, this was a hard thing to do. Something I'd done to a few people by now, but I wasn't numb to yet, and now had to do to someone who I cared about. Yeah - I had no illusions about saving her, or turning her to our side, or anything like that. Maybe Nagato's gun would magically make her good and we'd get her as an ally, and I'd be more than okay with it if that happened, but I'd told myself again and again that I wouldn't hesitate because of that possibility, and that wouldn't regret taking the first chance I could to end her life.

For her, though, this seemed to be something more than just the execution of a dear friend. Or maybe the long fight to get here combined with the nanomachines had dulled my emotions too much for me to fully sympathize with her. Maybe I was supposed to be feeling like she was, too.

"Why did you come out?" Her voice cracked as she broke the silence at last.

I didn't know how to answer that, so after giving it some thought, I just said, "I had to see you for myself."

Part of me had hoped that she'd be unrecognizable. An Alternate from a world so different from mine that it wouldn't have to hurt. Silly, I know. The girl in front of me was the worst version of herself she possibly could've been; a Yuki Nagato that wore her heart on her sleeve, and showed me every bit of pain that I was inflicting on her with my presence through the subtle changes in her expression and the tears that were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. She closed her hands and wrapped her arms tighter around her legs, her eyelids fluttering like she wanted to squeeze them shut or look away, but knew that she shouldn't. She had nothing to say back to me, so it fell to me ask.

"Why are you doing this?" I chanced another step forward, trying to mentally prepare myself to shoot when I was close enough. As far as I remembered, the needle gun needed to be at close range and preferably contact skin instead of her clothing in order to work. "Why would you... Why would any version of you be part of this? To go along with what they've done? I was in your world, right? And Asahina, and Haruhi, and Koizumi, so why-"

Nagato scrunched her face and hid her eyes behind her wrists - I took the chance to advance another two and a half meters. My every step was laden with concrete, and I had to blank out my mind to do it, but I kept my focus. I wouldn't stop moving forward. She let out a high pitched whine, and then looked back up at me and screeched, "Because she was there!"

I stopped when she looked, afraid to move any further while she was in a volatile state. Is it safer to approach while she's calm? Or more dangerous?

[Nagato:] "I think you know better than I do what she will do. I cannot predict her."

That was all the help I was going to get. Fair enough, I thought.

"She... She was always there," Nagato continued in a hoarse, emotional voice. "It didn't even make sense. She didn't go to our school, but just when we were getting close, she showed up and... and formed that club, and, and gave you chocolate, and..."

Right... In that world, Haruhi was going to Kouyouen School with Koizumi. So the details seem to match up... Except...

She formed the SOS Brigade anyway? In North High?

Everything always seemed to come back here. The idea was baffling, and yet I couldn't deny that forming a club in a completely different school was something that Haruhi might have done back then if she had a reason to. Even in the other world, when I told her about her other self that was surrounded by aliens and time travelers and so on, she seemed to love the idea of it.

So, was that world like... Wait... I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I had half an idea of what kind of Nagato I might be dealing with. One still trapped in her teenage years, no doubt - but more than that, a picture was starting to form.

"She couldn't leave me alone!" Nagato spoke like she wasn't used to yelling, her voice shaking as much as her hands. "My world... My world was mine, but she kept trying to make it hers, and even after everything she'd done to me before I was me, even without her power, she still... I couldn't do anything..." The tears started rolling and she lost some of her coherence, but she just kept talking like she had to tell me all this. Even though we both here to kill each other, she just had to share all this with me.

"She made it all about herself, I guess... Yeah, that's just like her," I muttered, starting to see a bit of the thread. I wasn't completely hopeless without Koizumi to pick stuff out of peoples' words, especially when it came to her. What she'd just said, that that world was supposed to have been hers, was my biggest clue as to who this girl really was.

The universes I knew about seemed to share a few things. Seija had pointed out that the Furies were selected from worlds where Reimu had been defeated, or in Koizumi's case, where the rest of the Brigade had been. I didn't know if those were the only differences, but I was starting to get the feeling that these universes somehow centered around those changes - in my universe, Nagato changed the world into one without the existence of the supernatural, and it was only through her hesitation and the decision I made that the world changed back.

So, hypothetically, what if I hadn't? That world would have stayed the same. Gensokyo wouldn't exist, or if it did, I wouldn't have had anything to do with it. Asahina and Tsuruya and Asakura might still have been part of my life because of the things I did while I still remembered the world that was, but for the most part, I'd just be living a normal school life in that literature club with Nagato. That was the world Nagato wanted at the time, and it was the one I would have wanted if I'd made that decision. A quiet little world with just the two of us.

...Something about that didn't quite add up, though.

"You said she started the Brigade herself?" I asked. "I wasn't the one who gathered everyone?"

Yeah... To get out of that world, I needed everyone. I acted like a creep to an Asahina that didn't know me, tracked down Haruhi and Koizumi on my own initiative, and wrapped them all up in that incident all by myself. Even though Haruhi was the one who took a shine to the idea of forming the Brigade, there's no way she could have been the only one to blame for that.

[Asakura:] "Isn't it a mistake to try and understand another universe by comparing it to ours? You can't assume that only one thing is different between them."

Well, what the hell else can I do?!

[Asakura:] "You could shoot her?"

I squeezed the handle of the needle gun, ruing whatever malignant fortune had put me in a position where Asakura of all people was my voice of reason. I know that. You don't have to tell me that I need to kill her! I know already! But even as I protested in my mind, I could still see Nagato's downcast eyes, and see how vulnerable she felt. She didn't answer my question; she was too afraid of me to even speak. As if she was really the one who needed to be protected right now.

Why... Why do you have to act like a victim here? After everything you've been party to?

This was so confusing. She was powerful. I knew she was powerful, but was this really the girl who could have killed my companions so easily? I didn't know what to think or how to properly react, despite the two voices in my mind telling me what to do. My head was swirling in a dozen different directions, my heart ached, and the gun in my hand felt like it weighed a thousand kilograms. I couldn't lift it at her.

"I haven't done anything," she whispered. "I haven't killed anyone. Hecatia just..."

That's a lie. That's such a lie! Not only would you have killed anyone else who came in front of you, you had to have been given your own universe! Weren't you going to destroy that, too?!

Nagato, I'm sorry to have to say this about another version of you. I really am. But after coming so far today, after everything that's happened and everything I've been through and the stakes being what they are, isn't this just stupid and childish?!

All it came down to was that this Nagato didn't like Haruhi. Because of that, she was willing to turn her back on all the people that died in order to obtain... What? A world without her in it? "How in the hell does any of this connect to becoming one of Hecatia's Furies? If you don't like someone, then just tell them to butt out! Why resort to this?! What possible justification is there for something like this?!"

Nagato shut her eyes gain and squeezed her legs even tighter, her face as red as a street light. "You don't know me!" she screamed into the cold air. "Stop looking at me like that!"

I seized the chance to run. She wasn't looking or listening. I reached the tree before she could finish her screaming, and I raised the needle gun, trying to stop my hands from shaking and make a clean shot. Even though it hurt like a rapier in my chest, this wasn't the time for hesitation or fear.

But then her eyes opened, and I couldn't move.

They weren't the same eyes as a moment ago. They were cold, as cold as my own Nagato's used to be. Though her lips quivered and her tears still flowed, those eyes darted between my face and the gun in my hand, back and forth, analyzing the situation. I'd gotten too eager, and now was being held in place by an invisible hand that could crush me at any moment.

"Don't you get it?!" she cried at me, the dual hysteria and dispassion seemingly warring in her expression. "She can't leave me alone! Every time, no matter what, in every world, that's who she is! That's who she has to be! Everything has to be because of her!"

Asakura, if you can free my arm just for a second... I struggled to no end, unable to even twitch.

[Asakura:] "I can't reach you. I think there must be something more to her ability."

You think?!

[Nagato:] "It's weaker, but some aspects of her power are otherwise identical to Haruhi Suzumiya's. She has a fraction of it in her somehow."

What?! Didn't we decide that was impossible?!

Impossible for her to have Haruhi's full power, maybe. But a fraction? No, how does that even happen to someone?

Nagato's eyes. They weren't just her conflicted feelings - something else was coming through, the same way that Utsuho had come out of Jinwu.

"I-I-I-I didn't ask for this. She just happened. Everything just happened to me. I didn't even do anything." Nagato continued stammering out her excuses, grabbing at her own face in horror. "I-I was hit by a car, and... and why would that have happened if I shouldn't do something with this power? Why would I have this power if not to fight her?!"

Although she was still shouting, her voice was weak. She herself couldn't believe in what she was saying. What's more, what she actually said was... You didn't take it yourself?

This Nagato didn't steal Suzumiya's powers? They just... happened to her? How in the hell?

The hows and whys weren't really my biggest concerns, as big as they were. I heard a crunching sound, and felt the needle gun move in my hand - I couldn't look, but I knew that my weapon had just been rendered impotent.

Shoot... I can't even reset like this...!

Getting too close too quickly was a mistake. She'd looked so vulnerable that despite my better judgment, I'd completely underestimated Nagato, both in her abilities and in her resolve to act. Despite overcoming my hesitation, there was something else I should've been thinking about here instead.

"Even you... Another me is probably helping you rescue her, right...? She made her suffer, too."

Nagato reached up from where she was sitting, the air between us distorting until I was surrounded by some barely-perceptible energy that seemed to tug at my skin. From somewhere in my head, I heard a quiet, high-pitched tinnitus whine, and the next moment, Nagato's voice, inflected with a mild and uncharacteristic panic.

[Nagato:] "I hav# to d*scon#-"

What?!

[Nagato:] "I can't sev^r connect¥on. Sh%'s f(rcin -"

The whine increased, and I heard static, drowning all else out. The Nagato in front of me whispered something, staring coldly into my eyes, and the very next moment, everything went quiet all at once. Her hand raised up and her fingers curled inward in a beckoning motion, and my body responded without my input; I began to walk against my will, unable to influence my own body. I turned and sat on Nagato's left-hand side, putting my hands on my lap and straightening my back into a stiff and unnatural posture. The feeling of pressure disappeared from my head, and I found I could turn my neck once again - I looked down at Nagato, whose face showed apprehension, yet whose eyes were still clear and focused. She leaned her body against my right arm, putting force into the movement like she was making herself do it; her body was almost as tense as mine, but gradually, that tension began to disappear.

Nagato? Can you still hear me? Asakura?

"They can't," said the Nagato next to me. "But I can."

My veins became ice, and I realized that not only could I not hear them, I couldn't see them either; obviously, the others were hiding from what would be instant death. Even though I knew they were just around the corner, I had the strongest impression that I was now totally alone out here. An empty schoolyard, a full moon, and the night of Christmas Eve, if that's what the date was in this world. Somehow, it didn't feel as romantic as it sounded.

If I can move my head, I can reset-

Wait, no, don't think about resetting-

"Hmm? Don't think about something?"

I tried to bite into my tongue, but my teeth wouldn't move - my head had been frozen again. Nagato looked up into my eyes, searching my expression, as I stared back at her in horror. If she could access my thoughts like Nagato could... how the hell could I stop myself from immediately thinking about my hidden advantages?

"You tried to do something. You thought if you could move your head, you could get free." She leaned forward, searching my face with desperate eyes from behind her glasses. "What were you going to do?"

She... can't read my mind?

Nagato's eyes narrowed, and she straightened up and held her breath. "I... I am. I can hear your voice... But she restricted her own access." She bit her lip, visibly stumped. She suddenly seemed wary, like she didn't know how to talk to me, and it clicked in my head what was going on.

Nagato did something. If I try to think about the elixir, you can't read that, can you?

"I knew she'd protect you. I knew it..." A strange smile appeared on Nagato's face, and she looked down shyly. After a moment of awkward quiet, she fished inside the pocket of her coat and produced a black handheld game console with a little snowman ornament dangling from a strap that was attached to its corner. It looked like a PlayStation Portable - only, the design of it looked smoother and it had an additional analog stick and some extra buttons, along with a tiny front-facing camera on the right-hand side. PSVITA was printed under the screen in a modern typeface, making me think it must have been an alternate universe version of the console I knew.

"The console isn't different, just the year. They had to update the adaptation," Nagato said, powering on the system through a button on top. Instead of a startup screen, it opened into a mostly black screen with a wide, deep orange glow near the bottom. I had no idea what was happening now - was she just going to play a game in front of me now? Even though we were just trying to kill each other?

Where's Nagato? Don't screw with me like this!

"Mm. That's right. We'll play it together." Nagato tilted the right analog stick a bit, causing the view to shift. It panned up, away from the glow, and then down to look directly at it, experimenting with the sensitivity of the controls. When she looked down, the orange glow became more defined, and the roiling motion it was making became recognizable.

Is that magma?

Is this-

Nagato tilted the stick to the right. The view turned, and I saw people. Satori sitting with Utsuho and Rin on a small boulder, being interviewed by Aya, with Mokou standing not far away. Kazami, Mima, and Meiling lazing around on the cavern floor, having a laid-back conversation. Fujiwara, Suou, and Kyouko Tachibana sulking off to the side, watching from afar. Yukari and Eirin contemplating a chessboard, with Kasen hovering over them. The view passed over all of them, anchored on a single point.

This is back in Former Hell. But how-?

"Oy, Nagato," Mokou's voice came through the speakers. Nagato flicked the stick back to the left and centered the view on Mokou, who was now looking at screen. "What's happening? Is he still alive? They still not fighting?"

Nagato held down the left shoulder button and spoke clearly at the screen, "He's just sitting with her. Nothing is happening." Her words were doubled, sounding back through the speakers; not transmitted as-is, but re-spoken from a different mouth.

Don't tell me you're...

"Mmhm. I'm controlling her, see?" Nagato pushed a button and a familiar hand raised in front of the screen, waving at Mokou. "She's not a real girl to begin with. Just a puppet made to look like one. The original version's mind and body were one, but I separated them. In your universe, the real her is a formless mass of data, so all I have to do is connect through the machines in your body and then prohibit her access to her body." A smile appeared on her face - not a sadistic one, but more like innocent pride in a job well done.

...That...

I didn't have any words for how I felt when I heard her say that. All I could do was get angry and let her feel that through our connection. Her smile faded and she hid her eyes from me, keeping focused on the screen.

"Aaaagh, what the hell's their plan?" Mokou ground her heel in the dirt, tossing a glance at everyone else for commiseration - she got a few wry looks, but no one knew much what to say. Kazami was as serene as always, and Eirin and Mima looked downright bored, but everyone else seemed to be majorly on edge. Well, how couldn't they be? All they could do was listen to Nagato tell them tales about my stupid actions, probably anticipating a revelation that some or all of us had died.

What are you planning? I wanted to try and shout into the microphone or something, but I couldn't move a muscle. Then again, the fact that she had let me move my head earlier before she found out about the elixir meant that probably wouldn't have worked. My mind went to all sorts of dire possibilities, starting with the obvious: If she had control of Nagato's body, couldn't she kill someone without them ever seeing it coming? Like Yukari, or even...

"You keep thinking about killing," said Nagato in a disappointed tone.

Obviously! We're surrounded by nothing but killing right now, aren't we?! Don't even try to pretend like you're too good for that!

"In that case..."

Nagato panned the camera away from everyone else and sent it down, and Haruhi's face filled the screen. She and Sasaki were laying in a brand new extra-wide futon on the cavern floor in front of where Nagato was kneeling, their eyes shut and quivering like the both of them were having the same bad dream. For some reason, the others hadn't moved the two of them, and they were shielded from the heat of the nearby magma only by two large rocks and the magic wards we'd put on her. Seeing how vulnerable they were made my heart leap into my throat, and it dawned on me what a dangerous situation this had become.

"...Is that what you want? Should I kill her?"

Hell no! I tried in vain to struggle again, but my muscles wouldn't respond. I couldn't even strain myself; there was just no connection between my mind and body anymore. Nagato sat still, watching Haruhi for a moment before pressing the button to make Nagato raise her hand again.

Is that really all you're after? Revenge? Just another one of the Furies?!

What the hell is the point of-

"I'm not like them." Nagato pressed her lips together, her hand seizing on the controls. "Why can't you understand? I never helped them do those things. I'm... I'm doing my other self a favor, taking back what she gave away."

Nagato's hand opened on the screen, the air warping around and between her fingers. The space between her and Haruhi began to distort like it was caught in a heat wave, and Haruhi's face scrunched up in discomfort. She didn't make a sound, though. No one made a sound. And no one would, would they? From everyone else's perspective, it was just Nagato tending to Haruhi like normal.

You can't be serious. There was no fighting this. She could kill anyone in a second, and even if she wouldn't kill me, I'd already passed up my chance to kill her. I got too cocky, thinking I could run up like that. Now, I couldn't even reset and try again. Well, that's natural - most people don't get second, third, and fourth chances. They just mess up and die, and in a world without second chances, fear and caution are the only things that can keep a human alive to try again.

The air was silent. No sign of my allies. No one probably even knew who was in danger right now. No one could guess what was about to happen. Nagato was just too strong, and there was no one in this universe who could stop her now.

"So, the next topic I want to ask about is your dealings with the Moriya Shrine." Aya's fountain pen scratched like a whirlwind across a page in her open notebook, transcribing her own words as quickly as she spoke them to the tired-looking girl seated on the opposite rock. Today had been a gold mine; exclusive coverage of a world-shaking event, and now that the others had gone through Yukari's gap into another universe, she had plenty of time to get statements and impressions as it was happening. Assuming the universe survived - which Aya had complete faith in, of course - there would be enough material here for months of articles, maybe even more with some creative spacing out.

"We've had no dealings," said Satori, a little annoyed. "The first I heard about any of it is when the oni showed up with a contract to build that monstrosity out of the top of my house. I honestly thought my sister was behind the whole thing. I never would have imagined that someone had gone behind my back and spoken with Okuu." She spared a look at the bird in question, who returned a vacant smile, having no idea that she was being rebuked.

That corroborates with what everyone else was saying... So, the Moriya Shrine really does have a habit of sneaking around. Should I blame them in my article...? Aya filled the opposite page with notes as she thought about how to arrange the very first article. It was an important one, and one that would shape the world's perception of the event. A heady responsibility, for the right information at the right time could even start or put and end to a war.

"Right, right, that makes sense." Aya quickly turned her attention to Utsuho, and after waving to get her attention, said, "What made you want to get involved in the shrine's shady dealings? Do you believe nuclear energy can compete with wind energy in the tengu power generation market?"

Utsuho's blank face told Aya clearly that she wasn't following the conversation. She tilted her head at Aya and said, "Shrine?"

...As I feared. This girl has no idea what kind of conflicts can come out of cutting in on a business. In that case... Aya leaned in and pressed Utsuho with another question: "By the way, doesn't nuclear energy generate a lot of harmful waste? And since an incident like this happened, it sounds hazardous, right? Do you think it's worth the risk?"

There's no way she can give an intelligent answer to that. So no matter what she says, simply printing the question will...

"It sounds to me as though you're planning on using that paper of yours to spread fear among your own people," Satori interrupted Aya as she tried to pen her thoughts into the book.

So you are reading my mind. Well, that's fine, because I've got nothing to hide. Aya straightened herself up to look Satori in the eye and replied, "Fear? I wouldn't say that. Every society needs to be cautious about foreign influence. If nuclear energy sourced from the underground becomes popular, it could lead to a power imbalance where the tengu village becomes dependent on the Ancient City. I'm simply trying to-"

"-Maintain your independence?" Satori completed Aya's sentence with some contempt, watching her carefully. "And if you libel this shrine in the process, that's just fine?"

Satori's eyes drilled straight into Aya, but she maintained her poise and dismissed the accusation with a flick of her pen, saying, "Everything I print is the truth. If I write something that harms them, they have only themselves to blame."

It was clear that Satori had a bad impression of Aya, but Aya couldn't see the problem - after all, the Moriya Shrine had taken advantage of her, and she and Aya both had an interest in making secrets known to all. Even so, Satori continued to admonish her; "Is that all you came here to do? If pointing fingers is all you're good at, I can't see why you were allowed to come along at all. Everyone else has been fighting for the world, and I haven't read a single thought from you about helping."

Can't see, huh? Be careful; staying locked up in that dark house will make you short-sighted. Sorry - I meant nearsighted. Aya smiled back and awaited a follow-up, but Satori didn't have anything to add to that, opting instead to look away at Mokou, who'd just called out to Nagato. A good while had passed since the last report from the other side, and it seemed that they'd gotten themselves into some kind of standoff with another Alternate, which had once again made everyone tense. Everyone was waiting for the moment when Nagato would inform them that someone in the other universe, or maybe all of them, had fallen.

Utsuho, on the other hand, stood up and proclaimed at Aya, "Nuclear energy is great! It's the ultimate power, stronger than the wind!" She put her left hand to the eye on her chest and said with glowing pride, "It can power anything, create anything, destroy anything! If you doubt nuclear power, I'll show you how strong it is right now!" Utsuho raised her Third Leg into the air, challenging Aya.

"...Destroy... anything..." Aya mumbled, jotting down more notes.

"Eh, Okuu..." Rin whispered, tugging on her arm to try and maker her sit back down. "I think you should let Lady Satori talk, yeah?"

Satori sure didn't seem to want to talk - her eyes were fixed on Nagato now, who was holding a hand above Suzumiya's body with her back to everyone else. Satori's expression was both quizzical and concerned, which signaled something amiss, and before Aya could ask about it, she said aloud, "That girl stopped thinking."

"Hmm?" Aya leaned in. "Stopped thinking, you say?"

Satori's eyes narrowed. "Up until now, her thoughts were too fast and strange for me to read," she said. "Now I can't hear her at all."

Aya watched Nagato, starting to sense for herself that something was up. Nagato looked even more stiff than normal, and it'd been too long. Plus, the way she was holding out her hand...

What do you know. Lord Tenma was right.

"Well, you aren't wrong that my paper can be used to spread fear," said Aya, standing up and snapping her book shut before dusting off the back of her skirt. "If you ask me, though, not all fear is bad for you. In your case, I think you all should've been a little more afraid of your enemy from the start."

Satori returned a confused look, and Aya responded by looking across all of the others; no one, not even Yukari, was paying attention to the most critical point. Everyone's attention was focused beyond the borders of the universe, so sure that they knew everything about the situation and had nothing to worry about inside their own circle. A group like this trying to battle for the world would surely, inevitably make many mistakes.

"Me, though, I learn a lot from watching people. The way that humans live, afraid of everything around them, actually makes them stronger than you'd think. You know what I mean, right?" Aya grinned, twirled her pen, and held it out together with her notebook at Satori. "Hold this, will you?"

Satori frowned, but took the book and pen in her hands - and the very moment she did so, Aya disappeared in a gust of wind.

Nagato's hand descended on Haruhi, aiming to touch her with that strange power. I couldn't watch, but I couldn't stop watching, either. The hand went down, wind blew inside the cave, and the very next moment...

...Wind?

A blast of it almost knocked Nagato off her feet, and she stumbled forward. In a nanosecond, her wrist was caught and deflected, and her body was cradled by Aya Shameimaru, who appeared as if from nowhere to carry her away from Haruhi. Nagato's eyes widened next to me and she hurried to mash more buttons and move about, but Aya put them both into a spin and let her go, sending her sailing through the air; I couldn't even tell which way was up, as the view was tumbling over and showing nothing but black space, brown rock, and orange magma, each flashing chaotically across the screen. By the time she'd righted herself, she was high in the air and in the center of the magma chamber, with Aya floating in front of her, fanning herself with a fan of wide orange feathers. Behind her, Mokou was rising into the air, and I could see the others gathering together with no clue of what was happening.

"Ayayaya... Everyone's so carefree, letting someone like you slip in so easily." Aya reclined in the air with a cool confidence. "You know the saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'? Well, tengu have a different one - 'the friend of my enemy is my friend, and my friend is my enemy's friend.' It means... Well, it means you should be careful around powerful friends."

She figured it out? Aya of all people?

That saying of hers sounded more like something Seija would believe. In other words, the whole time, she'd been keeping an eye on the rest of us. It was in the back of my head, the idea that someone on our side might want to take advantage of Haruhi when this was all over - take her power themselves, or put a stop to her, or something like that. I hadn't really taken it seriously, but apparently, Aya had. She kept her pose in the air, staring directly into the camera, and continued, "The enemy they're fighting is an alternate Yuki Nagato, who was able to take control of Kyon's body, and ours stops thinking even while she's talking to someone... Well? Got something to say for the record?"

"I don't want to kill you," Nagato whispered, her hands tightening around the console.

"Oh? That sounds like a confession." Aya showed her teeth and adjusted her position into one that looked ready to pounce, black wings unfurling wide from her back. "But I've got strict orders to terrify that girl, so I'm afraid I can't let you tamper with her."

...Sorry, what? You have orders to what?

"...I see." Nagato hesitated, then pushed the button to raise her hand-

[SPELL CARD: "PEERLESS WIND GOD"]

-but before she could even complete the motion, Aya was gone. A black and white blur crossed the screen in an instant, and then again, and again. Nagato couldn't even look at her before she was gone again, and each time she passed, more green danmaku shot out from where she'd been, with blasts of wind accompanying it that sent the screen tilting back and forth. Nagato was overwhelmed in an instant and had to back up to give herself room as Aya kept accelerating faster and faster, becoming practically a permanent stream of afterimages that surrounded her, spewing danmaku from all sides. Once she'd gotten fast enough, she broke away from Nagato, alternating between firing danmaku up close and doing near-instantaneous laps around the pool of magma below, sending a wall of magma up, borne on the wind, in a great cyclone around her and Nagato that blocked everyone else from view.

She... she's making a wall to stop Nagato from killing everyone. She can't see them!

The speed at which she flew was mind-blogging. I mean, I knew she was fast. She had claimed to be the fastest in Gensokyo, but this?

Fast as she was though, one person managed to get inside the cyclone before it was formed. Mokou was hovering just inside, equally in awe at Aya's speed and the amount of danmaku. "Hey, what's going on here?!" she shouted into the air, doing her best to dodge through the streams of danmaku that poured in from all sides. "Why're you fighting a battle now?!"

Aya's voice reverberated throughout the cavern, coming from every direction at once; "Hey, this girl can kill you by pointing at you, you know. An enemy possessed her while you were goofing off, are you okay with that?"

Frustrated by her inability to target Aya, Nagato instead swung the camera down to center on Mokou and pressed the button, causing Mokou's body to burst apart into nothing after only a second of delay - and immediately afterward regenerate in a burst of flame as the flow of wind and danmaku diverted Nagato off-course again. She was downright panicking trying to dodge it all, and I could see sweat forming on her brow and her fingers start to quiver from how fast she had to react.

"...Ah. Yeah, I'm fine with that," Mokou called back in an irritated tone. "I was getting bored of waiting, anyway!"

Nagato sucked in a breath as a shot grazed the Nagato on the screen, leaving a black scar across her body when the camera looked down enough to see it. Mokou joined in, launching balls of fire her way, and she had to back up in order to get some distance between them. With no ability to kill her enemy instantly and only a stick to change her point of view, she was not ready to fight a straightforward duel. In any other situation, I'd have called that a good thing for us - but not when it was so obvious what would happen if she lost this battle.

Wait, you two! You're going to kill her! That's still our Nagato!

And even if they did kill her, it wouldn't affect the one controlling her. It wouldn't save the rest of us on this side, either. I felt myself trying to move again, trying to do anything to...

"Help me," Nagato said. She was flustered, and only became moreso as she had to momentarily take her hand off of the console to fix her glasses, which had slipped down her nose. She was struggling, and the other two didn't seem to have a problem with putting the other Nagato's life at risk, and even though I knew I couldn't let her win... I had to do something. I couldn't let her lose, either.

Nagato suddenly put more of her weight into me, holding the console towards me and taking her hand off of the left stick. I felt my left arm shoot up and grab the left side of the console, and my left thumb was freed from the hold she had on it. She held on to the right side, using the right stick to look and the buttons to retaliate with her own danmaku at Mokou.

You want me to help you fight?!

"If you don't," she said quietly, "she'll die."

More shots came at the front, and guided by reflex, I pulled back on the stick to reverse. Nagato whipped the view around to give us both an idea of where the danger was, then resumed maneuvering around Mokou, finding a better angle of attack. What the hell am I doing. No, what hell are you doing?! Anyone who's played a video game could tell you that this kind of co-op play doesn't actually make it easier. Not having any idea of when the view was going to change or what Nagato was planning, along with the fact that I was looking through a screen and not in the battle myself made it so much harder to move around. Not only that, but as I soon discovered, the stick only controlled movement on two axes, and to go up and down required the use of the shoulder buttons, one of which I couldn't reach from my end. Nagato could read my thoughts, so she was better at coordinating with me than I was with her, but that still wouldn't make it easier for her than to just control the movement herself. In fact, if I wanted to, I could just ruin her plans right now by driving Nagato into a shot...

Which, now that I thought of it, might have been the point. I had the power to stop this, but only by sacrificing Nagato with my own hand. She knew I couldn't do that, so she dangled it over my head. But why? Just to torture me? Is that all it is?

That had to be it. Whether I won or lost this battle, I'd bear the responsibility for it, and all I could do in the mean time was hope to draw out some kind of stalemate. Could anyone even come to my rescue now? Was there anything Nagato or Asakura could do? Or even someone else? I had no idea, and thinking too hard about it would just alert the alternate Nagato to the possibility.

Nagato smiled. There was pain on her face, and yet she smiled with genuine happiness. "No. I'm showing you the truth."

What the hell does that mean?!

With her left hand, Nagato fished in the pocket of her jacket and produced a small plastic chip that resembled an SD card, only it had a magic circle printed on it with a snowflake design in the center. She opened up a port on the bottom of the console and inserted it, pressing buttons to raise Nagato's hands at the same time.

[SPELL CARD: PHANTASMAGORIA "TWO-PLAYER MODE"]

A shockwave spread out from Nagato's position on the screen, destroying the danmaku immediately around us. A vertical divider appeared going down the center of the screen, and the view split into two, with my side being shunted to the left and Nagato's side to the right, and I felt the rest of my fingers come free of Nagato's control. Through my side of the screen, I saw Mokou charging ahead, firing a stream of fireballs at my position, and I tilted the stick right to strafe along them, overwhelmed by the sudden change in situation.

You're kidding me. How can I even do this? I can't look around! Nagato was busy controlling her own side of the screen, and though it seemed like she could pan her view around just fine, all I could do was tilt the stick. Nagato looked surprised when the thought entered my head, then abruptly became flustered and stumbled over a response, saying, "Ah, uh, um, th-the back is a touch pad. Sorry!"

The back? I tried sliding my now-mobile fingers along the backside of the console, and the view rotated clockwise in kind - now I could see another Nagato to my right, this one transparent and passing straight through Aya's danmaku - and to my horror, when I looked down, my own character was still the real Nagato, completely corporeal and still bearing the scar from the earlier graze. No wonder Mokou was only attacking me. The right side of the screen was controlling the phantom Nagato, who flew in a wide circle to try and outmaneuver Mokou, and both of us were letting off staggered rings of danmaku that quickly filled up the area. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop myself from firing, so I immediately did the next best thing; I backed away as far as I could, trying to Mokou and Aya more room to dodge while keeping away from their shots myself. Unfortunately for me, Mokou didn't seem to get the hint and gave chase, diving fearlessly through the cloud in order to get at me.

Come on, come on... Isn't there some way I can communicate with them?! All I could do move around, and only in a limited way; although Nagato's body seemed to reposition itself in accordance with how I wanted to move it, there was no way for me to try doing any hand signals or sky-writing, and with my mouth still frozen, I couldn't try speaking into the microphone, not that it probably would've worked anyway. I couldn't stop thinking about how messed up it was that Nagato had transformed a spell card duel into a video game - I mean, I'd tried my hand at danmaku games in the outside world, but they were way different from this. I always sucked at them, too, so it was inevitable that I'd lose eventually, especially since I didn't have any extra lives. Even Nagato had been having trouble with it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her calming down now that she wasn't under pressure to dodge, and that innocent smile was creeping back on her face. She really was enjoying this ridiculous situation.

"You have the hitbox," she said. "I won't stop you from losing if you want to."

Like I said, I can't just do that, and you know it!

Nagato nodded like that was the most beautifully obvious thing in the world. "In a normal world... In a world where her wishes don't come true, you'd never fall for her. She tricked you with her power. Even now, you can feel it, can't you? That's why... Those are your true feelings. Even though doing so will save Suzumiya, you can't let her die. As long as you keep trying, you're choosing to fight against Suzumiya."

...Seriously?

Is that seriously all this thing means to you?!

She just wanted to undermine Haruhi wherever she possibly could, even going as far as to try and pry me away from her. For what? Aren't I just some random other version of myself to you? We're completely different people, from completely different universes! Just because things might've worked out that way in your world doesn't mean it has anything to do with us!

"No. She also... I know how she feels. It doesn't matter which version, we're still the same!" Nagato's voice cracked as she insisted upon that same insane equivalency that Mayumi had. Did all the Furies think that way? That everyone was the same, no matter what universe they're from? Isn't that completely illogical? The Nagato that I know is like night and day compared to you. No, like fire and ice!

"We're not," she croaked. "We're not! She's a puppet, I'm a puppet, you- Look where you're going!" Nagato interrupted herself, shooting out her left hand to tilt my stick in the opposite direction and narrowly avoiding a blast of flame that Mokou had brought down on me from above. My heart rate spiked as I realized how close I had come to taking a fatal hit, and I put my focus back on the screen. I couldn't listen to her distract me anymore.

Why do I have to fight Mokou, anyway?! Doesn't she get that it's Nagato?!

Aya's danmaku spell card timed out and the wind stopped cycling. The wall of magma hung in the air for a moment, suspended by nothing, and just as it started to fall, Mokou gritted her teeth and reversed direction, casting another spell.

[SPELL CARD: UNDYING "XU FU'S DIMENSION"]

Mokou tossed out a huge number of blue amulets that spread out from her in a manji pattern, followed by a red one that was reversed. The edges of the two manji formed a square perimeter just inside of the falling magma wall, then expanded up and down vertically, creating a second wall of burning amulets that blocked our exit and, more importantly, our sight; Nagato still had no chance of getting to the others.

"Good save! Now, let's finish her off before we're naked out here!" I heard Aya's voice from somewhere behind me. She was still staying out of sight of both of us, and the most I ever saw of her was a blur that quickly exited my vision. Mokou grunted in response and began putting off a repeating sphere pattern of red shots around her, along with the repeatedly spreading talisman manji. I could see on her face that she was also under stress, and I realized... No, she knows. She knows exactly what she's doing.

Whether because she had turned on them or was possessed by a Fury, the fact was that Nagato had the power to kill any of them and was trying to do just that. With the universe at stake, no one else had any illusions of trying to preserve everyone's life; I must have been the only one dumb enough to think that that was possible. Mokou, Aya, and probably everyone else had been resolved to sacrifice anyone else, and maybe even themselves, from the very beginning. I thought I could force myself to kill anyone now, but I didn't even consider that I might have to kill a friend.

Especially not her. Not Nagato.

"You already knew the truth. You'll throw away everything else for her, too." Nagato's choked-up voice came in from my right, and I did my best to ignore it. I tried not to think about anything, just desperately dodge away from Mokou's spell card and keep an eye out for Aya trying to attack from behind. Sure enough, small rings of danmaku were being thrown out every which way around me, all to limit my movement so I'd have a harder time avoiding Mokou's spell. I pointed my view downwards and dove straight down, seeing that that was my only real chance of getting away. On the other side, the phantasmal Nagato was flying nearby, passively letting off danmaku without actually trying to fight. Before I could get far, though, the wind blew in and carried with it the blurry, zigzagging form of Aya. She flew circles around me, shooting so close and from so many angles that I couldn't possibly avoid it, and my screen rocked and my vision dimmed as I suddenly plummeted and Nagato's spell ended.

No!

I wiggled the stick, trying to gain some semblance of control. The two screens became one again, and Nagato began pushing more buttons as well, which at least had the effect of leveling out the view. I saw a glimpse of Nagato's torso, which had become blackened, with part of it crumbled away, and I started to panic all the more because Aya wasn't stopping. She had outsped us on the way down and was now underneath us, firing spirals of danmaku upwards that I could barely get away from in conjunction with Mokou's spell, and I knew we'd be hit any second if I didn't do something. I held down the left shoulder button and ascended, traveling with Aya's danmaku and against Mokou's, trying to curve away from Mokou as much as I could.

"You're trying to find a way to cheat again, but you can't." Nagato was busily weaving whimsical danmaku patterns in Mokou's direction, drawing loops and swirls and waves that almost resembled some type of girly handwriting, a far cry from the mostly geometric patterns that my Nagato always used. She kept Mokou in the frame, but only on the edge, giving me room to see where I was going as I tried to veer away from her. "There's no loophole this time. You can't avoid choosing."

Yeah... Probably not. I can't move my body, you're reading my mind, and I can't make Nagato do anything useful. There's no way I can cheat here, but if you ask me, I don't think I have to.

Even if you say you haven't killed anyone, I know... You had a plan, and that plan always involved you killing us all. But now, because you saw me, you're doing something different. Trying to kill Haruhi? Steal her powers? Convince me of something? That wasn't part of your plan. You're falling apart emotionally. You're going out on a limb to toy with Nagato, and that means you're underestimating her.

This Nagato's behavior was wild. It had been bugging me the whole time, but I never really managed to put it into a coherent string of words. She probably knew it, too, because as my thoughts started to coalesce, her composure began to fail. A glance of the situation might have suggested that my own Nagato was just as trapped as me - a puppet under her control, just as she'd said earlier... And yet... Something occurred to me.

You didn't make Nagato a puppet just now. She was a puppet from the start, right? Not an autonomous drone, but something controlled remotely. All you did was hijack her corporeal body.

Doesn't that mean...

I didn't want to think about what could happen. I didn't want to give her ideas. Still, I realized that something had to happen. My Nagato wouldn't let this situation be. No matter how terrible it was, no matter how much it seemed like we'd been beaten, she'd always come through, and this time, there was as much of a window for her as there ever was. Somehow, without even really thinking about it, I trusted her. Unless this Fury Nagato ended it right now, I knew that mine would pull through.

She didn't know about the elixir, but that didn't really matter. The Ultramarine Orb Elixir did nothing but tell the future, which as I learned from Junko meant that it couldn't avert an unavoidable death. By now, there was no question that I couldn't reset back far enough to change anything about my situation, so whether she knew of those circumstances or not, this Nagato still knew that she could kill me where all of the others had failed.

So... I'm not the one who has to make a decision.

"Stop it," she whimpered, keeping her watery eyes on the screen. "Stop thinking of me like that. Do you think I could really do that? Do you want to die?"

The hell I do. Right now, though, I don't have the choice whether to live or die. That responsibility is yours.

Nagato's knuckles turned white, and she went silent, continuing to attack Mokou with danmaku patterns that grew gradually more aggressive the more time passed. Her many thoughts were written plainly on her face, which contorted between sorrow, anger, and fear like she couldn't make up her mind what to feel right now. The only thing certain was that she didn't believe me. No - it wasn't that she didn't believe, but that her own fears wouldn't allow it. She couldn't allow herself to question that my Nagato wouldn't overcome her, because if she did, then she'd have to make a decision of her own. That was the real purpose of this game; just a way to procrastinate the end, and to push the burden of ending it onto me.

I kept doing my best to dodge, and Nagato kept up her attack. Aya flew in in behind us to try and catch us off-guard, but not too near - she must have been wary that Nagato would be able to catch her if she got up close. She was fast on the controls, but not nearly as fast as my Nagato would have been.

[SPELL CARD: "RESET BUTTON"]

Nagato started letting off quick defensive spells like this one, erasing danmaku around her to try and outlast Mokou's spell. Her reflexes seemed to be doing more to keep us alive than mine, but somehow, we eventually got through it, and the wall of danmaku came down. This time, Aya and Mokou didn't jump to cover it, and when we finally could see the whole cavern again, there were only a few people standing on the ground. Haruhi and Sasaki had disappeared with everyone else, and instead, standing not far from the lake of magma were four figures whose silhouettes I could barely make out on the screen - but the one in front was distinctive enough with all her fluffy fox tails that I at least recognized her. Aya and Mokou both looked back at them, their expressions guarded.

They knew that the others outside were going to do something... Was Aya going around the wall to check on them the whole time? Going between the outside and the inside, attacking us, communicating with Mokou... all too fast for us to notice?

The four figures all raised their hands as one, and Nagato let out a gasp of panic as the screen of the console distorted for a moment and the view jerked around without our input. I heard a crackling sound in my head that grew louder and louder, gaining pitch until finally...

[Asakura:] "Hello, everyone! Are you all connected to this side now?"

Asakura?!

[Emiri:] "Connection established. Resolution factors are operating normally."

[Ran:] "Chen, can you handle it? Don't lose control of your body, even for a moment."

[Chen:] "This is hard! Too hard!"

Ran and Chen?! How are they-

[Suou:] "#%*#)&¥))&¥"

[Amaya:] ")#R¥#("

Something that resembled Suou's and Amaya's voices sounded inside my head, but they were garbled and unintelligible. Actually, when they spoke, it wasn't even like noise - more like strange, alien ideas were being transmitted directly into my mind that I couldn't make sense of and came out as garbage.

[Asakura:] "The communications protocol isn't fully compatible, but I think everything's working out. Get ready to lock down on my lead."

"Stop it..." Nagato's hands trembled as she scrambled to push the buttons on the console. On the screen, Nagato's hands raised towards the distant interfaces, and the air began to whorl in front of her. None of them moved to react, and she screeched at the screen, "Stop it, you mindless puppets! You're letting her win!"

One of Yukari's gaps opened up, directly in front of Nagato. And as soon as it was open-

[Nagato:] "Correct. In this universe, Haruhi Suzumiya must win."

Nagato! Yes!

A tremendous sound of cawing crows came out of the gap, and a second later, the screen was flooded with fluttering black wings and beaks. Nagato flailed her arms, erasing one bird in front of her with a wave of her hand - but even the blood that spewed out was lost amidst the fluttering of endless birds that crowded around Nagato, making it impossible for us to see anything. She kept trying and trying, killing whole groups of birds at once, but there was just no end to their numbers.

[Ran:] "My mistress is concerned with her image. It is believed that she is trying to win without sacrifices, you see, and that is not a kind of purity that suits her. Therefore, she has ordered me to sacrifice them - her shikigami scouts."

Ran, what-

[Ran:] "We are going to lock down now in order to pool our processing power. Please don't try to talk to me."

The cloud of crows dispersed a moment later, forming up into a wide ring that rotated around Nagato. They stopped flapping their wings, spreading them wide instead to glide in an eerily silent and orderly fashion, all their heads turned to stare unblinkingly at us. They acted more like robots than crows, which I guess they were, in a sense. Mokou had come up close enough to look us in the eye, and I couldn't see Aya. Nagato tried again to raise her hands and exterminate the crows around us... but though the air twisted and rippled around them, nothing happened. No effect was conjured in reality whatsoever.

I told you.

I told you that you were underestimating her!

"Shut up!" Nagato ripped the console out of my hands so that she could control the movement stick, gritting her teeth as tears started to flow down her cheeks. "I know you trust her! I know that! That's why... Why can't you see, that's exactly why...!"

"This is some kind of sick joke, isn't it?" Aya, who had just appeared in front of us in the blink of an eye, nonetheless ignored us in favor of staring down at the ring of crows, which was growing ever larger as more streamed in through the gap. "Send all these crows just to die in front of me, and make me be party to the whole thing! She's making fun of me, I know she is! If we get out of this alive, I'm declaring war on her, I swear!" She drew a spell card that sported the label of Crow Sign, casting a baleful eye at the screen and saying, "Well, anyway... I'd rather not have this Overmind thing mad at me, so I guess we've gotta be gentle with her now. I can't guarantee it won't hurt, though."

"I won't lose to them..." Nagato muttered, still panicking. "That spell card she's holding is a direct attack... I'll just go around her and destroy the puppets...!" She began casting a spell at the same time as Aya, fixing her view on the motionless interfaces in the distance.

[SPELL CARD: EXPLOIT "SPEEDHACKING"]

[SPELL CARD: WIND SIGN "TENGU NEWSPAPER DEADLINE DAY"]

Nagato dashed directly at Ran, covering half the distance in a single second - but Aya was right beside her, carried along by a miniature gale, and the next moment, she was in front. Nagato held the screen close to her eyes and sputtered, "W-Wasn't she going to attack!?"

Aya held up the Crow Sign she had drawn earlier, which was decidedly not the one she'd just used. She shifted her fingers, and the one she had used speed herself up popped out from behind it, which prompted Nagato to bite her lip and Aya to sprout a wicked grin. "Information is king," she snickered.

...I... I'm starting to see how Aya was able to beat Reimu and everyone else while reporting on them. Not just her speed, but her ability to read and manipulate her opponent...

Thinking back on it, I'd never actually seen Aya fight before now. If this was the kind of skill she'd been holding back, I wished I'd been able to watch it in action sooner. So, seriously, what did you mean about orders to terrify Haruhi?!

While Nagato was still processing what had just happened, Aya unleashed an upward kick that sent the view spinning backward, where I caught sight of the crows. They were diving, all as one, a ways behind Nagato. Almost immediately afterwards, a new spell was cast, and this time, it was the one we'd expected.

[SPELL CARD: CROW SIGN "DAYMARE IN THE DARK NIGHT"]

The crows' eyes all glowed bright red together and they accelerated, descending upon Nagato again and pelting her from every direction. Nagato tried to regain control, but all she could do was reach out and physically crush their bodies, which wasn't nearly enough to stem the tide. The screen began to glitch as Nagato's desperation mounted, and she cried out, "Can't you understand?! You held out because you trusted her! You believed in her! Those are your real feelings!"

It was... kind of pitiful at this point.

[Nagato:] "Perhaps your version of him is like that. However, this one is different."

My Nagato's voice sounded in my mind, and the one in front of me shrank physically from hearing it. "He's going this far for us. Even though he thought Suzumiya would die, he held out..."

[Nagato:] "That doesn't surprise me. He put Gensokyo and his own family at risk in order to save them both from Seija Kijin. He risked failure again in an attempt to save Clownpiece. None of that has anything to do with Haruhi Suzumiya - it is simply who he is. He's the kind of man who tries to have everything and save everyone, even when it's impossible."

Nagato's words felt unusually pointed, and their points were directed at me. Well, it was a fair assessment; the way I'd been going about everything, even before the Ultramarine Orb Elixir, I really was reckless and greedy as hell. A smarter man probably would've prioritized, like Aya and Mokou had been, but trying to make those kinds of sacrifices just wasn't something I could ever learn to do. In that way, this other Nagato was the same as me. Just then, I felt something - my body twitched. As if a snake were uncoiling from around me, I started to feel like I could get free.

[Nagato:] "It's true that I can't prove he did not end up with Haruhi Suzumiya because of her power. Perhaps if she did not have it, he would not have been charmed. However, you have not watched this universe, so you may not realize that we won't hate her for it."

The spell card ran out and the crows dissipated, but before Nagato could move, Aya was already right next to her, and already casting another spell.

[SPELL CARD: TORNADO "GUIDEPOST FOR THE ADVENT OF THE DIVINE GRANDSON"]

At this point, the screen became unreadable. Nagato was swept up into a fierce wind that even swallowed up the crows, and sent swirling around in the air without end. Any attempt at movement was impossible; Nagato's limbs were flailing in the air, unable to fight the winds, and still being mobbed by the bodies of crows. I couldn't see anything that made sense, and Nagato seemed to understand that she was finished. She just dipped her head low and let out a whine, no longer looking at the screen.

[Nagato:] "Haruhi Suzumiya is our leader and our friend. You can't turn any of us against her."

That was the finisher - Nagato's control of me lapsed completely, and I felt my body come free. I moved as quickly as I could and lunged for the console - she didn't react as I seized it in my free left hand, ripped it from hers, and threw it down on the ground. I stomped on it with all my might, grinding the screen into the ground with my heel and watching it fracture and go dark. Again and again, I stamped it into the ground.

And then... all was quiet.

The only sound was Nagato sobbing on the ground, her head pushed into the snow and her glasses lying half-buried next to her face. She couldn't even bring herself to move anymore, and I couldn't feel anything wrong with me anymore. I still had the needle gun in my right hand, but now that I had the chance to look at it, I saw it was crushed. The top of it was caved in and the nozzle had been bent upward. No way would it fire now.

I'm... alive.

Are you okay, Nagato?

There was no answer for a few seconds. A long silence passed.

Nagato?!

[Nagato:] "Do not worry. I am fine."

I felt myself breathe out. She was fine. Even in that situation, she'd come through not just for me, but for herself. Though I'd just been sitting on the ground the entire time, I had to bend over and catch my breath - on top of how far we'd come until now, it was all too much for me to handle at once.

I know you probably think it was the wrong choice to hold out for you, but... I'm glad you're back. Really.

[Nagato:] "It was the wrong choice. But thank you for valuing my life enough to make it."

That was one disaster averted. But now... I turned to watch the Nagato on the ground. She didn't look like she was about to get up, but I'd been overconfident before. I had to decide what to do here, and do it quickly.

What the hell was that plan back there... Using shikigami and interfaces together, even the Sky Canopy Domain... It may have been my strangest battle yet, and that was saying something, but it also might not have been over. It all depended on what this alternate Nagato would do.

I can't use the needle gun on her. I have to... finish her off some other way.

It was the only option. I examined my other weapons - the Sword of Hisou was bent and the blade wouldn't come out, and the chambers of Chiyuri's and Fujiwara's pistols were crushed as well. The flashbangs in my pack seemed to have been spared, but as far as handheld weapons, I'd been completely disarmed. Using my bare hands was a bad idea for all sorts of reasons, so for better or worse, I had no real options at the moment. After a few more arduous seconds of waiting, Nagato finally sat up and covered her face with her hands, trying to collect herself.

"...I wasn't going to kill her," she whimpered, her face still hidden. "I was just going to take her and Sasaki's powers."

This again? She still expects me to believe that she's an innocent in all this?

"Even if I'd known that, I'd still try to stop you," I told her.

"...I know. I always knew... It'll never be any different." She sniffed, then slowly began to pull herself up into a sitting position. She took her hands off her face and picked up her glasses, brushed the snow off carefully, and put them back on her face, mumbling, "That's why... We have to change it..." She closed her eyes and breathed in for a moment before saying, "...But you're right. I... I shouldn't have tried to save you."

[Asakura:] "Her power is spiking again. Watch out."

You've gotta be kidding-

I heard more cracks. A great grinding of metal and concrete drowned out everything else, and the next moment, the entire connecting passage on the far side of the road behind Nagato ripped itself away from the walls, tilted itself so that it would fit, and then flew at high speed towards us, whipping up a great wind that knocked me clean off my feet and sent me sprawling in the snow on my back, then stopping in the air right above my head. Beyond the shadow it cast all around me, Nagato stood up, her legs shaking, and she turned away, staggering around the tree and heading in the opposite direction. She never looked up. She kept sobbing to herself the whole way until she reached the center of the passage between the two buildings and stopped where she was.

Why did I ever think it was over? The thing above me was large and close. I might have been able to dodge it if I were standing, but from this position, it'd be difficult.

"So you weren't going to kill her, but you'll kill me now?" I grunted through my teeth. And you won't even pop me like you did the others. You'll crush me under a building instead?

"I won't," she said, her quiet voice barely reaching me from the middle of the lane. "You'll just die."

The bridge came down on top of me, and before I could move, the world went gray and time halted. I scrambled to my feet and out of the way, pressing against the wall of the school to give it as much berth as possible, before noticing Nagato - she was unaffected by the time stop as expected, but she still had her back to me. She still wouldn't look at me as she tried to kill me.

This is how you live with it. Not even trying to justify it like Hecatia, or reveling in it like Clownpiece. You won't call it duty like Mayumi, you won't say you were forced into it like Seija, you won't just not care like Jinwu, and you can't even blame the power inside you like Junko. Instead of that, instead of any of those halfway logical excuses, you'll just turn a blind eye and say you had no part in it?!

My body felt heavy and slow again, which made me vulnerable, and she probably wouldn't make that mistake again. I wasn't sure how much time I'd have to try and eat another one, much less to suffer its effects, but then again, I didn't know what else I could do right now. My hand went down to my satchel and slowly pried it open, watching for what Nagato might do next.

[Nagato:] "Eat it within seven seconds. Go."

Not stopping to question, I found a peach and jammed it in my mouth, trying to force down as much of it as I could. As I did, something red flashed by my head, and Nagato suddenly began to move. Dust kicked up and more crashing sounded around me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a conical gray rock whizz past me through the air, trailing white streamers - Tenshi's keystones were swarming in from all around us like a cloud of flies, one after the other, firing red lasers at Nagato, who dodged quickly yet sloppily in a sudden panic, having been taken off-guard. She focused her attention on the stones, one by one, and each one was burst apart, but she couldn't delete them instantly. Each one had to be ground away over a couple of seconds like the wall before, which meant that Asakura had probably fortified them beforehand.

[Asakura:] "I'm using your vision to spot for her. Try not to look away too much, okay?"

Got it!

The lost seconds made it much harder for Nagato to fight back, which was good news for me. This Nagato didn't seem used to dodging, and although she was able to move and react at high speed, it seemed like that was all she could take at one time. She was definitely more human than the one I knew.

[Nagato:] "Retreat behind the fallen passage."

I complied, breaking into a run away from Nagato and trying to get behind the bridge, which had tilted itself at an angle and caved in from the top to form more of a wall. As I did so, I saw the clouds begin to swirl overhead - Sanae was casting a spell from afar to make danmaku rain, and even some of Reimu's homing shots were coming in from a small gap that had opened up nearby. They were putting pressure on Nagato, suppressing her so that I could get away... or perhaps so that Asakura herself could make a move. When I rounded the remains of the bridge, I found her leaning against the back of it wearing her old charming Class President smile, and when I approached her, her hand immediately went for the broken gun I was holding. She held it up between us, gripping my hand with both of hers, and before my eyes, her fingers bent the metal back into place. Within seconds, it was whole again, like it had never been crushed.

"I won't be able to repair the sword in time," she said softly, "but I'll trade you for this." With her left hand, she held up the baseball bat I'd left behind - the one that Nagato had said could be enchanted to deflect danmaku. I wasn't sure just how much use it would be against an enemy who wasn't using any, but I took it anyway, grateful to at least have a working weapon.

"What should I do next?" I asked, trying to get myself ready to go back out. It seemed like she and Nagato had some kind of plan, and I was more than willing to try anything at this point.

Asakura, however, simply said, "Who knows? We can't hit her. You might be able to, though."

...Yeah, I guess I have to. The others could put off a lot of shots, but none of them could actually see their enemy. Plus, there was the chance that Nagato would hesitate against me. I just had to avoid being disarmed again.

Ever since we got to this world, it's like I suddenly have to be the one to finish every fight. Even if it's just because of the elixir and the Sword of Hisou...

...Well, that's fine. Everyone else has been carrying my weight up until now, so tonight's my last chance to return the favor.

After taking another moment to catch my breath, I hid the needle gun in my pocket and headed out into the danmaku storm. Most of it seemed to avoid me thanks to Asakura's targeting, but I still had to dodge the odd stray shot as I moved in towards Nagato. She hadn't sought cover or even changed position much at all, it seemed, so I just had to make it close enough while she was distracted, keeping the baseball bat behind my body so that maybe she wouldn't notice it.

Unfortunately for me, Nagato was starting to get used to it. Most of the keystones had been erased by now, with those that remained carving up the path with red lasers that sought to limit her movement while the other shots went after her directly. Every time she turned her back on a keystone, it would move in to try and hit her, but she always narrowly escaped, and when she noticed me coming, I saw her face turn dark and anguished. She stopped dodging the lasers, and instead, she shut her eyes and gripped the sides of her head, the air around her warping outward like a fisheye lens. Some of the shots coming at her were distorted out of the way - others grazed her, leaving black gashes across her body to which she didn't react. The keystones, meanwhile, began to tilt away, dragging their lasers up the sides of the buildings.

What the hell...?

When she opened her eyes, they were wide and yet focused once more. The keystones were seized and began firing even harder, their beams tripling in width. They began to shake and turn, all of them, towards me. The first one to reach me, I dodged in time. The second one, I didn't, and was forced to reset.

What the hell?!

[Nagato:] "Tenshi's energy is being leeched and expelled through the keystones. She can no longer control them."

[Asakura:] "Ooh, I didn't know she could do that."

Just like she could use Haruhi's power against her will, she can hijack Tenshi's, too. It seems like she can hardly control it, though...

In any case, I was in a better spot to dodge the beams the second time. The first two, I avoided easily. The third was narrower. When the fourth came, it was accompanied by the first three, which swung back towards my new position, and I couldn't avoid them all - but I could shield myself. I wasn't exactly expecting it to work on a laser, but I swung the baseball bat at a beam that I couldn't avoid in time, and to my surprise, it was knocked away as though the laser were a solid pole, sending it slashing across the building instead. I deflected the others the same way as they came, chancing a glance at Nagato - she wasn't even looking at me, still struggling with her own power.

In that case...!

I didn't bother with hiding the bat. I took it in my hands and aimed at Nagato, getting ready as one of the lasers swung back towards me. When it came near, I swung with all my might, praying to the bat that it would hit its mark. The laser was sent straight down the aisle, cutting up the ground and heading straight down the center of the fisheye distortion, straight into Nagato, who opened her eyes and screamed as it went straight up the center of her body, letting off too many sparks for me to even see what was happening to her.

[Nagato:] "Now. Go."

You don't have to tell me twice!

I ran for her, putting my right hand in my pocket to get ready. Golden chains shot out from Nagato's body, coiling into a shield that fought back against the laser as she herself looked faint - her head was bobbing up and down witlessly, and the black burns on her body looked similar to the ones that my Nagato got from danmaku. Hers, however, did not spread so much, and did not cut deep, like it was only half as effective against her.

I think I'm starting to get it. Even if I don't understand it, exactly.

Without the option of using Fujiwara's pistol, I dashed straight into the mass of chains while they were otherwise occupied and fired the needle gun straight into Nagato's exposed collarbone. Something came out of the tip and buried itself in her skin, causing her eyes and mouth to fly open in a scream. The air around her flexed for just a moment before all of a sudden, her body gave out and she went limp, landing straight on her back in the snow. The chains began to writhe, and after a moment, retreated back inside her body. The keystones stopped firing, and everything went silent all at once.

Did I do it...?

I hid the gun again, just in case, and cautiously gripped the bat with both hands. I advanced slowly, trying not to get overconfident again, but also getting ready to deal the final blow. I tried not to think about what it meant that I'd have to do it with a baseball bat.

"Gone..." Nagato whispered. "She's gone..."

[Asakura:] "I think it worked. I can't detect her influence anymore. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful, though."

I couldn't say anything. I stared down at Nagato, trying to comprehend the situation. I was ready. I was completely ready to kill her now, if it was safe to do so, but... but she wasn't moving. The words she spoke, and the quivering of her lips and tear-filled eyes were the only signs that she was even still alive. Her glasses had been knocked aside, and she stared up at nothing, overcome with obvious grief.

Is it just me hesitating, or... is it possible that I can spare her?

[Nagato:] "Unknown."

What do you mean, unknown?! Isn't that the most important thing to know right now?!

[Nagato:] "The program in that weapon was modified to erase a humanoid interface's existence. However, it is not certain what exactly this version of me is. If it failed even slightly, she may recover from its effects."

Nagato's body began to bleed from the places where the danmaku had scorched her. Her unfocused eyes watched the snowflakes falling, and when I stood over her with the gun in hand, they centered on me.

"...She was the the only one brave enough to tell you her feelings," she murmured, her voice filled with sorrow. "Even though... I also..."

Well, it was obvious by now how she felt, and hardly surprising - in another world, maybe there could have been a version of Nagato that had fallen for a version of me. But still, hearing it from her mouth made my body go stiff, and the pieces started clicking in my mind. "Who?" I asked, feeling like I already knew the answer.

"...Me." She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, trying to stifle a sob that came up out of her. "We finally became one person, but... but now she's gone." She sniffed, and sucked in air with a great shudder that went through her whole body. I couldn't tell if she was reacting more to pain or heartbreak, and it felt bizarre that she was reacting like this. Like she was mourning for someone who had been incredibly close to her.

She said she'd gotten her powers after being hit by a car, right?

But that power wasn't hers. In her world, she was just an ordinary human. That power had to come from somewhere else.

[Nagato:] "It is possible that some part of her previous self remained in her, along with the power she used to change the world."

...If that world resembled ours, yeah. And that was what came out.

As if suddenly gaining the memories and abilities of one's past life. It wasn't quite another person trapped inside of her, like with Utsuho and Jinwu. It was two sides of the same person. The same cowardly girl who remade herself and her whole world, and then tried to do it all over again when she was re-awakened. Now that only one of them was left, it was probably like she'd just lost a huge part of herself.

I could see what Marisa meant when she said that fear makes humans stronger. There are forces we can't fight, and trying to approach them just ends up destroying us. In a scenario where I didn't have the Ultramarine Orb Elixir, fear would've kept more of us alive, and fearing Nagato more as an enemy might've helped me kill her quicker. Fearing her now, even when she was helpless, would make it easier to kill her, which would ensure that she couldn't kill us later. That, ultimately, would make the multiverse safer from Hecatia.

On the other hand, fear was also what destroyed this Nagato. One side of her feared acting; the other feared not acting. She couldn't reconcile with the consequences of doing either, so she did neither, trapping herself in limbo, with the end result being that she spent her life surrounded by people - first the Brigade, and later the Furies - that she couldn't reach out to, but couldn't leave behind.

"Haruhi Suzumiya... It's all her fault." Nagato closed her eyes and sobbed. She'd completely given up. Even if she still wanted to fight, she couldn't. She wasn't an alien or someone powerful like that. She was just Nagato.

"Yeah. Some of it, maybe," I said, lowering the gun. "Haruhi's never been afraid to go after what she wants. She'd speak her mind and do what she liked no matter who got hurt. But that was high school, wasn't it? Everyone's done stupid and mean stuff when they were young."

"She'll never change. She made everyone miserable."

"She did change. At least, she did in my world. But even if she didn't change in yours, what's so wrong about her going after what she wanted? Can you call yourself better just because you stayed in your shell? You've never hurt anyone in your life because you wanted something? Being passive doesn't make you right, you know. Being a victim doesn't mean you can't also be a villain!" I raised my voice just a little bit, but that probably had the wrong effect. Nagato covered her face and rolled over on her side, and I still didn't feel any better. I still wasn't sure about anything.

"She can't change..." She choked on her words as she wept. "You don't understand... She has to be that way..."

What, like you're an expert on her psyche? "Screw that! Since when do you have to fight her for eternity? If you can't win against her, then go ahead and find someone or something else away from her! Otherwise, compete properly! Don't wallow in half-measures! Don't drag the whole multiverse into your personal drama!" Again, shouting just made Nagato retreat further into herself. She curled up in a ball, causing her wounds to leak even more, and she didn't say anything back. Somehow, I'd gotten caught up in admonishing her and forgotten the situation.

"I just... I just don't get it. You're right," I said, throwing up my arms. "In the first place, isn't Hecatia the one who created your universe, so she could recruit you? Isn't that how it works? Why not hold her responsible for your life? Why does it have to be Haruhi?"

"She couldn't have changed anything, either... No one can..." Nagato continued to mumble unintelligibly, offering up nothing useful, least of all a decent comeback. It was like talking to a quivering rock on the ground. She reached a hand out abruptly towards the broken game console that was next to her on the ground, causing me to startle before I realized that she was actually reaching for the little plastic snowman ornament attached to it. Ignoring the console entirely, she squeezed the snowman with both hands right up next to her face as though offering it some kind of desperate prayer.

That thing isn't some kind of trap or spell card, right?

[Asakura:] "Not that I can tell. Better safe than sorry though, right?"

I stared a little longer, watching her knuckles turn white and her tears stain her clothes, before coming to a decision.

...Whatever. She can be like that forever if she wants to. I shook my head and, after a long moment of thought, turned my back on her and shouldered the baseball bat.

[Asakura:] "You're not killing her? After how much you worked yourself up for it?"

I killed the part of her that was a threat. The other one... She can't hurt anyone now.

[Asakura:] "And if the one you killed regenerates?"

...You'll be able to tell, won't you? If she does?

She was right; it was a risk, and one I kept taking. Still, there was a difference in context between this and Clownpiece. Fear might be helpful, but there's no sense in letting it control you.

[Nagato:] "Nothing is certain."

You've got that right.

I stepped away from her, requesting through Asakura that Reisen come out with the first-aid kit. Another Fury down without using up a vial, or even much of our strength - just one peach, and we had plenty of those. At least resource-wise, we were still doing well. I cast my eyes up the side of the building to my left - the culture department that contained the redesignated Literature Clubroom. I couldn't see anything but blackness through the window. Had Hecatia been watching that whole thing? Was I looking at her now? I had no way of knowing, but I was sure that I'd seen her in that room when she appeared before Clownpiece. She had to be there. Hecatia had went on about using important places for important events, and while I didn't really get all of it, it at least made some kind of sense that she had to absorb Haruhi in the same place where Utsuho absorbed the Yatagarasu. If there was any place in this school for her to hide and recover her power, it made sense that it would have to be in that room.

If I were her, though, I'd have tried to attack from there... I checked the other windows, and the ones on the other building. Despite Tenshi's lasers having crisscrossed them so much, there wasn't a single broken or scuffed window in the lot, which meant that there must have been some serious protection on the place. Only Nagato's power had managed to damage the building at all.

...Well, really, she could attack from anywhere, I guess. Reisen rounded the corner with the medical supplies, followed by the rest of the group. I stayed alert as they approached, watching for any sign of something trying to ambush them; they'd be able to tell if anything came for me or Nagato. Everything was suddenly way too quiet, and it felt like something could jump out at any moment.

What if Hecatia ran away...? Could she? If she managed to flee into another universe, it'll be a hell of a job trying to find her.

No. She's got to be hiding somewhere. She's going to attack us, I can feel it. This situation is too good for her not to take advantage of.

Where's it going to come from? Behind me? Behind them? From the sides? Above?

...Below?

I looked down - unlike the windows, the brick path had been slashed up good by those lasers, and I could see raw dirt and stone mixed in with the snow that had been blasted every which way. If Hecatia had something like that magma reaction spell that Jinwu had used, I didn't want to get trapped by it again. My number one priority was not getting into a situation where I couldn't escape by resetting.

Is she coming from-

"Kyon!"

Reisen had almost gotten to me when she skidded on her heel and stared behind me. I whipped around immediately, and saw-

What in the hell?!

Nagato had gotten up. Or rather, she'd been lifted up - just like Clownpiece, golden chains were spilling out from her wounds and propping up her body, writhing like tentacles. I whipped out Fujiwara's gun by instinct, but it was no more intact than it had been earlier. I still had no weapons other than the bat. I'd probably have to back off and hide from whatever attack was about to come at us now, but-

Nagato screamed, and the scream was cut off into a gurgle as another chain reached up out of her mouth, knocking away her glasses as it twisted every which way. Nagato's eyes were wide with fear, staring directly into me. I froze, caught between retreat and that pitiful look, and in that moment, Hecatia's voice rang out across the school.

"So confident. Have you grown in the time since we last saw each other?"

Then I saw her. Hecatia's faded image appeared above Nagato, accompanied by three worlds tethered to her collar. She smirked at me almost sarcastically, arms folded at her chest, though I still couldn't see enough of her to make out what she was wearing. My hand went down to Chiyuri's broken gun; even if it couldn't fire, the hammer might still work, and I sensed something bad.

"Too bad confidence isn't a virtue for a human. You should have stayed meek, little boy."

The red globe attached itself to Hecatia's head, and she lowered something - a piece of paper - down to the chain that extended from Nagato's mouth. The chain wrapped around it, then retreated inside her - along with all of the other chains. Hecatia's image vanished, Nagato was set on the ground, and at once, she clamped her hands over her mouth and stared wide-eyed at me, tears streaming down her face and hands.

This... isn't like Clownpiece.

What is she doing?

What the hell are you doing to Nagato?!

Nagato planted her hands on the ground, opened her mouth wide, and screamed at me, "Help-"

[SPELL CARD: OTHERWORLD "DISTORTED FIRE"]

No!

Flames erupted from her body, turning her black from the inside out. I couldn't look - I finally got Chiyuri's gun in hand, put my thumb next to the hammer, and pulled the trigger, hoping it would still bite me and bracing myself for the pain...

[SPELL CARD: OTHERWORLD "DISTORTED FIRE"]

...And when the reset happened, the spell was in the middle of casting all over again.

Two seconds.

The Ultramarine Orb Elixir had taken me back a grand total of two seconds.

How-

I couldn't think, say, or see anything. I felt someone grab me and pull me back as I saw flames consume Nagato for the second time.

Is it wearing off?! Why two seconds?! How in the hell does this thing work?!

The white-hot flame hurt my eyes to even look at. Nagato's body vanished with as waves of hellfire spiraled outwards, consuming the whole pathway. I only regained my senses when Reisen dumped me on the ground around the corner, immediately standing up and barking directions at the others. Everyone else spread out across the walls of the building, preparing to take action if the spell moved after them, and I... I just couldn't move.

Two seconds. Two seconds. Why two seconds?!

No matter where the attack came from, I'd be safe if I could reset, so, why...

Why two seconds?!

From my position on the ground, I could see just past the nearer connecting passage. A soft red light shone from inside the Brigade clubroom, emitted from a red planetoid sitting on someone's head. I could finally see her.

Hecatia was watching her spell card work. She was watching Nagato's body spew fire everywhere, not even to attack us - just to finish her off.

I spared her. I felt my eyes get wet. Why...? There's no reason. There was no reason for anyone to kill her.

...But she did.

Hecatia's eyes met mine from within that room, and narrowed. She was smiling, I could tell. And deep inside, as the numbness went away, all I could feel was hate and fear.

Everyone was quiet. After the battle with Nagato, her danmaku-blasted body had been lain next to the still-sleeping Haruhi and Sasaki, who themselves had been hidden behind one of the rocks in the cavern. It was important that none of them leave this underground chamber, yet it was more evident than ever that this place wasn't completely safe. Even so, those concerns about safety had been all but forgotten as Nagato continued to report on what was happening in the other universe. Yukari and Eirin had returned to their chessboard, and Yukari was hard at work trying to guess what other tricks might be used to strike at them there when the news of the confrontation's conclusion reached them.

I wondered if she might... but to do it when Nagato would no longer have even posed a threat to her...

"That... Why? Why did Hecatia do that?" Kasen was the first one to speak, her tone incredulous. "That makes absolutely no sense! Is she just plain mad?!"

Mokou was beside her, hands in her pockets and gritting her teeth with a grim look. "That's so screwed up. It's been screwed up. They've been throwing away their side left and right, haven't they?"

"She's that strong," spoke Utsuho, who was seated nearby together with Satori, her voice carrying a sense of awe. It seemed to Yukari that she couldn't grasp most of what was happening, but the moment Hecatia was mentioned, she had begun to listen intently. "I kinda felt it when I was in her. The power I gave her was nothing compared to hers, and if she'd merged with everyone else..."

"That is the nature of the queen," said Eirin as she flicked the white queen piece over to its side. "Powerful as it may be, it will still be sacrificed to protect the king."

Indeed. This is all coming to a head. For the time being, only one piece is left. Yukari stared down at the chessboard and all the black pieces arrayed around the lone white king. Still... Eirin is correct. There is still that play to be made.

Yukari's eyes drifted to Utsuho, causing Satori to take notice. Satori stared back at Yukari for a few moments longer before shaking her head.

"No." Satori frowned. "No, you're not-"

"Overwhelming power, a reason to fight back, and also a little knowledge about what she's thinking. There is no other obvious choice, is there? Besides," Yukari straightened herself up. "Humanity's strongest weapon has always been the nuke."

So that's it.

The flames died down, and Hecatia stepped stiffly away from the window. Though her wounds had been healed, it would be some time before the soreness went away completely, and she took that to be the price for her earlier misjudgment. Her enemy had been far too clever, it seemed, since the moment she'd tried to kill that boy. Victory after victory they had claimed, sometimes impossibly. It was if they knew her allies' every move in advance.

That, as it turned out, was the answer all along. The simple answers were indeed the best.

There was only one thing to do now. As she stood waiting in the high school clubroom, her other two bodies were hard at work. There was only one avenue for them to enter, and only one chance for her to gain the upper hand before the final battle. They pulled televisions, disc players, and other media equipment out from her gaps and arrayed them throughout the classrooms of the far building, along with the supplementary literature. There were many other items to be moved afterwards, and she ached to think that it had to be done alone.

Yes. She was alone now. Her friends were dead, without even a hereafter in this desolate universe, and the only way to bring them back would now be to see this through to the end. She had the power, and the time for planning was done. Now was to be her final test of will.

If only Seija had waited just a little longer... Well, it was inevitable that she'd turn on me, too.

There was no point in preparing more traps at this juncture. What she needed was terror. Something to break their spirit, not their bodies. Junko had always chided her for grandstanding all the time, but now was the perfect moment for it. Nagato's death would set the stage. There was only one more thing that she had to prepare now.

Her mind made up, she moved to the clubroom entrance and began to draw a rune. One that, in her foolishness, she thought she wouldn't need while she had tabs on Yukari. If only she'd realized it sooner, maybe it wouldn't have come so far. Nevertheless, what was past was past, and there would be no more room for self-doubt. Now, the only thing to do was to move forward.

Silly boy. There is no threat I haven't faced in these long trials, and this is one I've long known how to overcome. The lunar sage's power cannot shield you from mine.

The Ultramarine Orb Elixir won't save you from me.

Read and review. Lady Yukari demands it.