Author's notes: Whew, made it. Still got the epilogue left (and there's a lot to cover in it), but that's one big step closer to finished. Thanks for those who have been sticking with me, and please keep the reviews coming; it always helps to get a glimpse of things from the readers' perspectives.

- Chapter 16: Fade Out -

There was none of the usual topsy-turvy thing with the time travel this time. I guess without a physical body, there was nothing inside you to go topsy-turvy. That was a relief, except that I knew it meant that Haruhi, with her usual luck, was missing out on the one downside of time travel. She'd walk away from this whole adventure thinking time travel is always this smooth.

Assuming, of course, that she walked away with the belief that time travel was real at all, and not just something that happened in a dream. But that was for the best, right? I mean, Haruhi knowing about the existence of aliens, espers, time travelers, and sliders, and her own powers on top of that, was an apocalyptic scenario. Or so Koizumi and Miss Asahina said. Even supposing I couldn't take their word, it was too big of a gamble to take, wasn't it? The only payoff was that it would force Haruhi to finally take responsibility for how she used her power, and make her happier than she had ever been in her life. Those weren't much when weighed against a possible apocalypse, were they?

We opened our eyes to find we were still in the hallway outside the clubroom. Only now it was presumably still the Literature clubroom. I took a peek inside. There were three girls in there, each with a book in her hands, happily chatting away. I briefly wondered if any of them got to know this world's Nagato at all, then remembered that all three of them would have graduated by the time Nagato came to North High.

"So what now?" Haruhi said.

"Well, um, my superiors gave me Mr. Sugiyama's home address," Miss Asahina said. "So we can just head over there and see him."

"Great. Let's go!"

Yeah, great... more walking. I know it sounds petty, but I wished I could use my bicycle in this form.

"Hmm," Shamisen mused. "I suspect this is going to be a long walk. If you wouldn't mind, I would very much like for you to carry me."

Three guesses who this request was directed at. "I'm a ghost, so I can't do that. Miss Asahina is the only one of us who could, and -"

"Oh, I'd be happy to." She reached down and scooped Shami up, holding him against her chest as she walked on. Lucky cat.

We arrived as the sun was still bright. It was an ordinary enough house, apart from the lawn ornaments: Pink and blue plastic cranes. Not exactly the sort of place you'd expect the world's only known slider to be hiding out.

"I'll go in and bring him out," Miss Asahina said.

"Why bother?" Haruhi sounded baffled at the suggestion. "Let's just go in and get him to do his thing!"

"W-w-wait!" But Haruhi, of course, was not waiting. She was running up to the front door and through it. "His family may be home! With two ghosts that they can't see there, this could get very confusing... Oh..." Her arm, outstretched towards Haruhi, fell limply by her side. Disturbed by the motion, Shamisen hopped out of her arms. She sighed heavily and looked at the ground. "Why doesn't she ever listen to me?"

I knew how she felt. There was no more unenviable role than being Haruhi's personal doll, and in this universe, that's what Miss Asahina still was.

"Come on," I said. "We'll just have to go after her and do the best we can."

She nodded with resignation and took the lead, walking up the front steps and knocking on the door.

"Maybe you'd better lose the face mask," I suggested. There was no epidemic going on in this time, and Miss Asahina hadn't been showing any symptoms in the past few hours, anyway. Maybe Haruhi's power had cured her. There were still sick students in school when we were there, but since Haruhi wasn't as powerful in ghost form, maybe she had only been able to cure her friends. Better than nothing.

Miss Asahina nodded in agreement with me and stuffed the face mask into a pocket.

The slider's mother answered the door. Miss Asahina, with her ready-made charm, explained to her that she was a classmate of the slider's and that they had made plans to study together. Miss Asahina, as always, was short and cute enough that she could easily pass for a middle schooler, and while she couldn't make it believable that she would want to spend time with a guy who looked like Sugiyama, she was charming enough to make any mother eager to believe it. She let her in without even questioning the maid uniform that she was still wearing.

I followed along as she showed Miss Asahina upstairs to Sugiyama's room. We found him sitting on his bed, and she informed her son that her studymate had arrived. I noticed Haruhi already in there, grinning very strangely at me.

Even though I knew it was three years in the past – four years from when we met him in our world – I was surprised by how young Sugiyama looked. He was noticeably less chubby than when we previously met, too. He looked a bit surprised himself at Miss Asahina's arrival. Only a bit though, strangely enough. His mother told him to have a good time and left us alone.

Once she was gone, Sugiyama turned to Haruhi and said, "So this is the guy you're stuck with in my dimension?"

"Yup," she answered.

I really don't care for that description for yours truly. Haruhi is damn lucky to have me along with her on this. Wait... "You can see us?"

"Of course! He's a slider, so naturally he can see people from other dimensions!"

As if she hadn't just learned that for herself.

But now Sugiyama's focus was on Miss Asahina. That focus, incidentally, did not elevate itself all the way to her eyes. "And you're an alien?"

"Huh?" Miss Asahina fiddled with her apron. "Well, uh..."

"Where's your UFO?"

Haruhi was now making signals at Miss Asahina. It didn't take a genius to figure it out: Haruhi had told him that she was an alien. Not a completely insane idea: the kid's room was littered with spaceship mobiles, Star Trek memorabilia, and fuzzy UFO photos he'd probably printed off of the internet. Being treated to a close encounter was a good way of bribing him to help out.

"Um..." Miss Asahina struggled, but only a moment. "We don't... need spaceships to travel through space."

The kid's look soured. "If you don't have a UFO, you're not much of an alien."

"Oh... Does that mean you won't help?"

"It had better not." Haruhi leaned down to stick her face in his. "If you don't help us get back home, I'll make you regret it. I may not be able to lay my hands on you, but I can be very annoying when I want to be."

Or even when you don't.

"Relax, I'll help. Or I'll try, anyway."

"You'll try?" I said.

"Well, it's not like I've done this a lot. Also, I'm pretty sure to bring you back I need someone who's come from your home dimension without turning into a ghost."

"That's why we have Shamisen here."

"The cat?" He cocked an eye. "...Do you think you can get him headed in the right direction?"

"There is no need for them to direct me," Shamisen said, with an offended sniff. "I am perfectly capable of finding the right path for myself."

Sugiyama blinked. "He talks? Not bad. Is he an alien?"

"That would depend on how you define the term. A being from another planet could be said to describe myself, since the planet on which you live and the planet where I come from clearly have distinct continuities and existences. Therefore -"

"Sure, he's an alien," Haruhi cut in. "Now, will that do it? Can you get us home?"

"I guess so. I mean, I don't see any obvious problems."

Great, that really fills me with confidence.

"You know, you should be more excited about this," Haruhi reprimanded him.

"Eh. Going between alternate dimensions is less cool every time you do it. A ride on a UFO would be much more exciting. If you ever want to pay me back for helping you, UFO access would be the way to do it."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind. Ready to go?"

For a moment, I actually thought it was going to be that easy. Just have Haruhi find the slider, time travel back to before he knew Goro Mishima, and get him to bring us home. The kid was more than a bit odd, but basically decent. I was worried that he might screw up the journey back to our dimension, but I wasn't worried that he would double cross us.

That's when Miss Asahina said, "Um, hold on. There is one little, um, amendment to that plan." She pointed to Sugiyama. "You won't be going with them. Just use your power to send them back to their dimension."

The kid shook his head. "That won't work. Even with the cat along for the ride, if an actual slider doesn't pilot the whole thing, they won't be able to lock onto their destination. Best case scenario, they'll be back in their own dimension the same way they are now, as ghosts. More likely, they'll get lost in transit and totally fade out existence, like they were caught in a transporter malfunction."

"I d-don't care."

Haruhi stared at her. "Mikuru?"

"So long as they're no longer in our dimension, I don't care what happens to them." I was stunned, not just by her words, but by how she looked. Her face was twisted into something like fanatical desperation. "They're just ghosts from another world. I only need you. I need you to find someone from our world – someone who's lost."

"But that's like murder," Sugiyama protested. "Even if you don't care about it, I can't -"

"You can and you will!" She pulled out a little device that I can only compare to a retro science fiction raygun. "Or I'll- I'll... I'll reduce you to at atoms!" She spat it out like it was hard just to contemplate violence. "No one will know what happened to you."

His eyes lit up. "Is that a phaser?"

"Do it!"

"Mikuru, have you gone crazy?! You can't betray the SOS Brigade!" Haruhi put her body in front of the raygun and waved her arms around, but it didn't make Miss Asahina's aim waver.

This was insane. It had to be a joke. But Miss Asahina didn't make jokes like this. "Miss Asahina, why are you doing this?"

She glanced at me, but her focus remained chiefly on Sugiyama, with Haruhi a distant second. "I need a slider. And I couldn't leave you two behind in the present, because Miss Suzumiya's powers would eventually clash with our Miss Suzumiya's powers. So I have to send you out of this dimension, but I can't let the slider out of my sight, not even for a second, until he does what I need him to do. This was the only way!"

"The only way to do what? What do you need a slider for?"

"To find my brother."

"Your... brother?" The Sneering Bastard?

"I don't have time to explain it all now. Something happened to him, and now he doesn't exist in this dimension any more. And it's all my fault! My stupid mistake." Tears were trembling in her eyes. "But e-even if it hadn't been my fault... I have to get him back!"

I was starting to get it. This had nothing to do with Miss Asahina's orders. She was acting on her own. And from her perspective, she wasn't betraying the SOS Brigade at all; the Haruhi and Kyon of her universe would be totally unaffected by our demise. Even then, it probably took something big to motivate her to do something like this. Losing her brother was big enough, though. I couldn't swear that I wouldn't do the same if I had lost my sister.

A fat lot of good understanding did me, though. It wouldn't help me talk Miss Asahina out of this. In fact, it was understanding that let me see that there was no way of talking her out of it.

Forgive me. Only force would do it. "Haruhi... you've got to use your powers to disable that raygun. Do the same thing you did to Asakura."

"Huh? But I don't know what I -"

"No!" Miss Asahina took a massive step back. "I-If you move even an inch closer, Miss Suzumiya, I'll shoot your slider, and then you'll have no way of getting home, even as a ghost!"

"And if that's not enough..." said a new voice coming from, bizarrely enough, Sugiyama's closet. I turned to look. The sliding door rattled open, and inside was a tall, long-legged girl with a large pair of – well, they weren't quite as large as Miss Asahina's, but large enough to trigger the disturbing question of whether there was some form of genetic engineering going on in the future. And she was definitely from the future: first of all, she had a raygun like Miss Asahina's in her hand. Secondly, the Koizumi she had it pointed at, his hands tied behind his back, was not three years younger than the one we knew. "...then know that I will also kill your brigade vice leader."

Haruhi stared at the newcomer. "Who the hell are you?"

She smiled at that. "You didn't think Miss Asahina was the only one who cared about her brother, did you? I'm his girlfriend."

This might seem like a trivial thought given the situation, but... How the hell does the Sneering Bastard get a girlfriend while the best I get is a one-week fling with Haruhi?

"Forgive me, Miss Suzumiya." Koizumi bowed his head. "I was too slow to stop you when you said you were leaving with Miss Asahina. And then I allowed myself to be ambushed by this girl. If you consider my life forfeit for my dishonorable failure, I understand."

"Nobody's life is forfeit! Mikuru, you have to stop this!"

"Not until my brother is back safe and sound!" Miss Asahina gestured with her raygun. "Mr. Sugiyama, I'm giving you ten seconds to send those two ghosts back where they came from. Ten... Nine... Ah!"

What startled Miss Asahina was a brief crackling of energy in the center of the room, followed by the manifestation of Yuki Nagato in that spot. "Annexation complete. This room is now under my data jurisdiction."

"Wow." Sugiyama looked like he didn't know what to think. "My room's getting crowded all of a sudden."

"Alright! The cavalry's here!" Haruhi cheered. "How'd you get here, Yuki? Can you time travel too?"

"No. I have always been present in this time. My current self and my self from three years in the future synchronized."

"Huh?"

Nagato looked at Sugiyama. "Do you intend to return them to their own plane of existence?"

"Uh..." He looked more nonplussed by the small bespectacled girl who had appeared in this room with a "Beam me down, Scotty" than he did by the buxom girls with phasers. "Yeah, but unless I take them there myself, I -"

"Do not return them in any manner."

This was getting more confusing by the minute. "Nagato, what... what's going on?"

"I do not wish you or Haruhi Suzumiya to leave."

"But..."

"I can conceal you from humanoid interfaces. I will report that you were returned to your own plane of existence."

"But that's... Nagato, they'll find out eventually."

"There is a long term solution." She looked at Haruhi. "You are far more powerful than your counterpart. Given time, I can assimilate how to use your power to eliminate your counterpart and make you assume her physical existence."

Haruhi was stunned. "But... why? Why do all of that?"

"...You care."

Haruhi and I cared about Nagato. And our counterparts in this universe didn't. That was what Nagato meant.

So this was it. Nagato was afflicted by "an accumulation of errors" in December in this universe, just like she was in ours. Her goal was different, but the cause was the same. Emotions had proved to be more than Nagato could handle on her own. She cared too much, more than most humans did. She needed someone to care about her.

"Miss Nagato... We can't let you do that," Miss Asahina said. "There's no telling what that could to do our world... to reality itself! We have to send them back to their own world!"

Nagato didn't react at all to Miss Asahina's defiance. I could tell what she was thinking, though: with the room under her data jurisdiction, there was nothing the two time travelers could do to force Sugiyama to send us back. Nothing any of us could do, for that matter. Except Haruhi, and she would never be willing to do to Nagato what she did to Asakura.

Nagato glanced at a window, and it snapped wide open at her will. She stepped onto the sill, and turned towards me and Haruhi. "Come with me."

"Stop!" Fujiwara's girlfriend jerked Koizumi back by his collar so that her raygun was pressing into the back of his skull. "I know that you can throw up a protective field around the slider, but there's nothing you can do to save your esper friend from a weapon fired at this range. You can't even transmute my weapon fast enough to stop me from pulling the trigger. If you leave with those two, he dies."

All Nagato said was: "Fine."

That was it.

I remembered Koizumi saying to me during our camping trip, "Miss Nagato cares nothing for me. If her orders called for it, I am sure she would calmly stand by while I fell to my death."

Here she was, doing just as he predicted. Except that her orders didn't even call for it.

Haruhi and I didn't even have time to tell her this was unacceptable. The look on the time traveler's face plainly said that she either thought Nagato was bluffing, or was willing to kill Koizumi just to prove she didn't make hollow threats. And maybe Koizumi knew her well enough to tell that, because on his face was a smile that bid us a sad goodbye. I had always suspected that he was lying when he said his mind control ability couldn't make anyone do anything that they didn't at some level already feel an urge to do, but I guess this proved once and for all that it was the truth. With his life depending on it, Koizumi still couldn't use his power to make the time traveler drop her raygun.

I hated myself for not being able to save him, just like I hadn't been able to save Haruhi.

Then a furry blur shot at the time traveler's hand. As it made contact, she shrieked, and dropped the raygun. She thrashed to get the furry blur off, and I recognized that mass of fur: It was Shamisen, claws fully extended, tearing shreds of skin from the time traveler's gun hand.

I never knew the mouthy little feline had the grit.

In the same instant that Fujiwara's girlfriend dropped the raygun, Miss Asahina made to fire her own, and Nagato extended a hand, transforming her raygun into a hairbrush.

Realizing that Shamisen had given him an opportunity, Koizumi head-butted his captor in the stomach, making her drop, and kicked the raygun across the floor. Shamisen scampered away. Koizumi rolled towards the raygun, and held his hands, still bound behind his back, towards Nagato. "Miss Nagato, if you wouldn't mind breaking my bonds?"

She gestured, and the rope around his wrists unraveled and came towards her, reforming into a bo staff. Koizumi didn't waste an instant, snatching up the raygun and leveling it at the time traveler.

"Thank you, Miss Nagato. And since I am incapable of acting against you in this space, I suppose I must agree to your taking Miss Suzumiya with you, and hope that you have no objections to my taking Sugiyama?"

"You forgot something, Koizumi," Miss Asahina said with a cute giggle. "Without our help, you can't even get back to your own time. And those weapons were programmed so that they can't be fired at either of us, so you have no way of forcing us to do that. The only -"

"What the hell are you all doing?!" Haruhi bellowed.

That brought the room to a sudden silence. Koizumi marginally lowered the raygun in his hand, and the time traveler pulled a part of her sleeve over her bloody cat scratches. Aside from that, no one moved.

It would be tempting to label this as that old cliché: a fierce battle halted by the impassioned cry of an adolescent. But I knew what it really was. In the heat of the conflict, they had all forgotten that in their midst was a girl whose temper could trigger the end of the world. Miss Asahina had hoped to have us sent off before that could become an issue, and Nagato, I guess, felt she needed us to stay so much that she was willing to gamble on Haruhi being okay with it. But they had both gambled wrong.

"Here we were worried that Goro Mishima was going to do something to stop us from going home, and everybody but Mishima is trying to stop us from going home! And fighting each other, too! What is wrong with you all? The SOS Brigade is supposed to help people who are in trouble! This is the exact opposite of that!"

Koizumi bowed his head. "Miss Suzumiya, I..."

"No! No excuses! You know better than this! All of you! You're high school students, for crying out loud! What would your teachers say if they saw you acting like this?" She thrust her index finger at Sugiyama. "You're taking me, Kyon, and Shamisen home right now, just like we all agreed on! And if anyone tries to stop us, I swear I'll blow this whole alternate universe to nothing but specks of dust!"

I seriously doubted Haruhi had any idea of how to do that, and even more seriously doubted that she would be willing to kill five billion people, even to save herself, but it didn't look like anyone was brave enough to call her bluff. Except maybe Koizumi, since he didn't have any reason to stop us to begin with. I'm sure it would have been a different story a minute ago, when the two time traveler had hostages, but that trump card had now been removed.

Miss Asahina whimpered, "But my brother..."

"If you had just asked nicely, maybe little Takahiro would have helped you out after he was finished taking us back home. Now you'll just have to hope he's willing to do that after you yelled at him and waved rayguns in his face!"

Actually, the kid still seemed to think the 'phasers' were pretty cool. He was looking at us all not in fear, but a sort of bewildered wonderment. Nobody had specifically threatened him, I guess, so this was still just a sort of fireworks show to him. The kid apparently did not have his head fully planted in reality. No wonder Haruhi liked him enough to add him to the SOS Brigade.

"...You will leave?" Nagato asked.

There was still so little inflection in her voice, you could barely even tell it was a question. But it was. She had complete power over all the information in this room, and she was the one asking us if we were going back to our own dimension. As if she had no say in the matter.

I think Haruhi realized that, too, because her tone abruptly softened. "Yuki, it's not that we want to leave you. We belong with the Yuki of our world, and I know she wants us back just as badly as you want us to stay."

That sure sounded nice, surprisingly so for Haruhi, but it was about as reassuring as explaining exactly how bone cancer killed your mother. I needed to step in.

"Look, Nagato. I know you think the me and Haruhi from your world won't ever be your friends, but if this really is an alternate branch of our reality, that can't be true. Because they're really the same people as us. You just need to let them see who you are, the way you did for me so soon after I met you. Once they see that, they won't be able to help caring about you."

She still looked forlorn. "Path unclear."

"You just need to be yourself. They'll realize how incredible you are. Trust me." I shook my head. "Haruhi and I aren't anything special for liking you, Nagato. It's you who is something special. It always has been."

Haruhi smiled, equally at me and Nagato. "He's right, Yuki."

Now there's something Haruhi would only say if she thought she were dreaming.

Yuki looked at us, and opened her mouth, like she was about to say something.

But then the roof split open. Three seams were split in it, like cracks in a sidewalk, and then a clump of mortar, paint, and insulation fell onto the floor with a loud boom. Standing in the midst of the dust that blew up from that was Ryoko Asakura.

"Yuki Nagato," she stated. "We are not authorized to interact with humans at this time. Moreover, your establishment of data jurisdiction in this space, which I have now revoked, is in violation of our mission to observe."

Nagato stated: "I am aware."

"Get out of here, Ryoko!" Haruhi ordered. "Or I'll do to you what I did three years in the future!"

But apparently Asakura had no idea what Haruhi did three years in the future, because she ignored her and continued talking to Nagato. "Your data has been contaminated through synchronization with your future self." She sounded flat, inhuman. Maybe she hadn't yet assimilated the human mannerisms she used to disguise the monster she really was. "You must submit to have these errors corrected, or be deleted."

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"I understood the consequences for my rebellious actions when I undertook them."

"How very accepting you are of your fate." A smile formed on her face, a twinge of the Ryoko Asakura I knew. And wished I didn't. "And I see you do not intend to submit to error correction."

"Temporary solution," Nagato explained. "So long as I remain on this planet, errors will accumulate. Cycle will repeat."

"Then die."

It was like what happened the first time I saw them fight. Asakura's arms became long, bright blades, and sheared through the air towards Nagato. I screamed her name, but I could do nothing.

But someone else did something.

"Miss Nagato!" Koizumi rushed forward and flung his arms around Nagato, putting his own body between her and Asakura's blades. The sudden impact sent her glasses flying off her head.

I was witnessing my friends being skewered, unable to do a thing to stop it, and what made the situation worse was that it made no damn sense. Koizumi, in an act of self-sacrifice? Even if he were doing it for Haruhi, I'd have a hard time believing that. And for Nagato? Why would he do that?

But I couldn't look away. Which was good, because that's why I immediately saw the blades stop. They were halted by a sphere of dense air surrounding Nagato and Koizumi, about three or four meters in diameter.

Needless to say, Asakura was doubly puzzled. "What is this? New information? Only Haruhi Suzumiya is known to be capable of creating information."

Haruhi's relief was evident on her face, but she hid it with a contemptuous sweep of her hair. "Present and accounted for! You didn't think I would just let you kill Koizumi, did you? He's a key member of the SOS Brigade!"

"But you are an unrooted -"

"...transient artifact of a branched plane of existence, blah blah blah. Ghost or no ghost, I'm Haruhi Suzumiya, and Haruhi Suzumiya always protects her brigade members!"

Yeah, that's it. Keep talking big. Don't let Asakura realize that you had no idea you were able to do that until it actually happened. That it was luck, the kind of luck you can't rely on.

"Moreover, your attempted action just now must also be unauthorized," Koizumi said, his arms still around Nagato. "Miss Nagato has faithfully performed her duties from now until three years in the future. By eliminating her now, you would undo those three years of service. Your orders would logically be to deal with the errors when they first manifest, three years from now."

"I must stop Miss Nagato's present violations," Asakura said.

Asakura talking about having to stop Nagato from breaking their boss's rules. Now there was irony for you.

"She already stopped them herself, just before you arrived," Koizumi countered, keeping his arms protectively around Nagato. "Her intent was to leave here without further violation of your code. You have no legitimate grievance against her in this time. The only possible reason you could have for invoking punishment against her now..." He thrust an accusing finger at her, and cracked a knowing smirk. "...is because three years in the future, Miss Suzumiya will remove from you all ability to harm Miss Nagato. Your only chance was to synchronize with your past self, and use her 'errors' as a pretext to exact personal revenge. In sum... you are not the Ryoko Asakura of this present. You are the Asakura of the same future we came from."

I didn't care for Koizumi's indulgence in theatrics, but that was a helpful reveal.

Asakura smiled sadly and retracted her blades. "Too bad. The game's over." She inclined her head at Koizumi. "I suppose I should congratulate you on your deductions."

"Thank you. I do pride myself on my detective abilities."

"And because of that, now I am to be tried for errors. Since I assume you intend to transmit the events of the past few minutes, Miss Nagato."

"No need," Nagato said. "Your actions were justified, even if your motives were impure."

"How generous you are." She shrugged. "Oh, well. Back to three years of standby mode." She gave me a wink. "I'll see you when it's over, dear Kyon."

"I'd rather you didn't," I said. In fact, I'd rather Nagato had reported her as suggested, but I guess after she had offered to conceal me and Haruhi from the Integrated Data Whatever, squealing on her partner would have made her feel like a hypocrite. Sometimes I feel like Nagato tends to judge herself harshly.

Asakura floated away, resealing the room's ceiling behind her. "Wow," Sugiyama remarked. I guess he enjoyed the visual effects.

Koizumi, meanwhile, was enough of a gentleman that he let go of Nagato as soon as the threat of Asakura was gone. "Miss Nagato, in case Ryoko Asakura was not simply acting as a lone wolf in this instance, there is something I would like you to tell your superiors. If they wish for any future cooperation from my organization, they will retain you as their contact in the SOS Brigade until further notice."

"Transmitting," Nagato agreed. But the look she gave him had strong notes of puzzlement.

She wasn't alone. "What the hell was that, Koizumi? You argued with me that you don't even like Nagato, and then you..." I didn't want to say it. "...you... threw yourself into harm's way to save her. If Haruhi hadn't managed to create that shield..."

He shrugged. "I must admit, I surprised myself as well. I genuinely thought Miss Nagato was only a friendly opponent at best, but when I saw her in danger, suddenly it felt as though my very life was a secondary concern to protecting her."

There was a very awkward silence.

Then Koizumi smiled. "Just kidding. I was never in any real danger. While I don't trust the data organisms as a general rule, they have been noticeably consistent in their mission of peaceful observation. Killing someone as close to Miss Suzumiya as myself would be far too serious a breach of that, even for Miss Asakura."

"She already tried to kill me, in my universe."

"Ah, yes. I forgot that." He shrugged. "But in your case, your death was her specific objective. She would not kill me just to get at Nagato. It would be like slapping a wasp's nest just because it happened to be in your path. With her abilities, she could simply move me out of the way, costing her only the few seconds delay that I needed to expose her violation. Miss Asakura may be cold and vicious, but she is not irrational."

It still seemed like a bit of a gamble to me. But at least I was convinced that Koizumi hadn't laid his life down for Nagato. That would have made no damn sense.

Nagato was still looking at Koizumi. "Why?" she said.

He shrugged again. "As I just explained to Kyon, I was in no danger."

"But you did not have to help me."

"I did not have to, but your own actions have convinced me that to do so would be to my own benefit. You wish Kyon and Miss Suzumiya to remain here, and you could have forced them to stay, but you chose not to. That is not a particularly commendable choice, but it proves a greater trustworthiness than I have seen from your kind so far. Trustworthiness is a valuable commodity to my agency." He smiled. "As is your gratitude."

She stared up into his eyes. "Thank you."

Something about the way she looked at him told me that Nagato wasn't fooled by Koizumi's explanation, either. Sure, what he said made perfect sense, and it was probably even true so far as it went, but I couldn't imagine Koizumi going this far for every prospective ally of the agency.

It was like someone with a weird sense of irony had scripted this scene for my benefit. Here I was, concerning myself with Nagato becoming friends with me and Haruhi like she was in our universe, and she ended up becoming friends with Koizumi instead. Maybe she would find a way to work things out with Other-me and Other-Haruhi, like I told her. But maybe she would just be friends with Koizumi instead of me in this universe.

I guessed I could live with that. She had a friend, and that was what counted, right?

"Alright, enough dawdling around!" Haruhi barked. "Mikuru, take Koizumi back to his own time, got it? Kyon, let's get out of here before another half-dozen people crash this party. Take us home, kid."

Sugiyama nodded absently, like he was thinking that if he lingered for just a couple seconds more, some other amazing individual would indeed show up. He either didn't grasp the danger that had been all around him, or he valued his life second to his supply of thrills and wonderment. Not unlike a certain girl I knew.

"Okay," he said, and reached out his hands. "I'm opening the gate. It can be a pretty rough trip, so brace yourselves. Shamisen, you'll be leading the way."

"So long as the path is clear to me, I will do so."

The air shimmered and flexed, as though Sugiyama was having a bit of a struggle with it. After a few seconds of this, it stabilized, and Sugiyama wasn't making any remarks, so I figured we were okay.

I glanced back to say my goodbyes to the others, and I saw them turning transparent, fading, just like Haruhi did on my previous trans-dimensional journey. But Haruhi herself wasn't fading this time. We were remaining in sync, I guess.

Koizumi offered us a smile and a wave. "Have a safe journey."

Nagato said nothing. Even if she'd found a new friend in Koizumi, she looked sad to see us go.

"Kyon," Miss Asahina called. "Please don't think badly of me!"

"It's alright," I assured her. "I get it. You had to at least try to find your brother, right?"

I think she cupped a hand to her ear, as though she couldn't quite hear me, but they were all fading away so fast that I couldn't quite tell for sure. Not just them; that whole alternate reality was thinning, dissolving.

And then, as if to contrast with that, a hand reached out and clasped mine: a warm, firm, absolutely solid hand. I knew without looking that it was Haruhi's.

I wasn't sure quite what was happening now. Sugiyama and Shamisen were in charge of this trip, and they weren't saying anything. At least, not that I could hear. There was a strange silence all around. There was nothing in the way of visible objects, or, say, any sort of ground. But I didn't worry. Shamisen was moving forward – not exactly walking, but nonetheless advancing somehow – and Haruhi and I floated after him. And however unreal it all felt, Haruhi's hand was definitely solid and real. As long as I had that to hold onto, I knew we would both come through intact.