Nagato, Nagato... the fact that she's in the school could not be an coincidence... right?

'Asakura, not only does Fujuwara needs Haruhi's help, he also has to take out Nagato, and the only way he could do this is to pick a time when Nagato no longer has her powers. Let's ask Nagato what she would have done if she had powers - maybe you do what she would have done to get us out of here? I know the current Nagato has very little knowledge of who she was, but she's still very intelligent. Perhaps she can help us find a way out of this.'

Asakura said, 'I don't have any better ideas so I guess we can give it a try. Is Nagato still at school? I cannot sense any living things in normal space that is not overlapped by the closed space.'

'She told us she had cleaning duties yesterday, so she should still be in her classroom.'

'Okay. By my calculation the closed space would expand to include half of her classroom in about 800 more time loops. When the closed space overlaps the normal space Ms Nagato's in, I should be able to sense her location, and I can alter her phase and bring her into the closed space.'

'Wait...Sounds like you can "phase' her into the close space... you cannot "phase" yourself or me out of it?'

'Ah, you think I've spent the past 87 loops fighting Fujiwara, having boring chitchats with you, then staring at your dorky face for the rest of the time? No. I've been evaluating what my powers allow me to do and not to do. I cannot get out nor get you out, but I can sense living things in normal space overlapped by the closed space, and I successfully pulled a bird into the closed space several times. I cannot send it back to normal space though. In other words, nothing goes out once in.'

'Okay then, so until then we'll have to relive this over and over again?'

'Tell me about it.'

'Okay, we have a plan.'

Shortly after, the school clock rang 4:00 pm. I had a very, very, very, very bad and unsettling feeling, with a strong hint of despair.

Askaura said, 'Kyon, this would be the 888th time.'

The door swung open, and there he was, Fujiwara.

The thought of reliving 10 minutes for 888 times was torturous, but aside from that rushed sensation of memories came flooding back into my head in a split second, and a serious sense of deja vu and despair, it was quite a cake walk compared to what Asakura had been through. I remembered many key facts… I was in a time loop with Asakura, Fujiwara and I. I remembered it took Asakura nearly 4 minutes to put Fujiwara out of commission - his self-defense device was slowly but surely becoming more effective. During the time loops, Asakura tried everything she could think of: bribery, threats and numerous torture methods I could not bare to watch. But the most vivid and horrifying experience was when she pretended to kill me - after we repeated discussing enough about it and we agreed to give that a try - she did stab me while avoiding the vital organs and blood was gushing out like a fountain. However, Fujiwara would not fall for that. He insisted I had to stop breathing - good old Asakura though, she kept her promise and did not end me.

Despite the battle dragging out longer, Asakura's protection remained impregnable. Perhaps it's because Fujiwara remained a fairly weak opponent. He was able to drag out longer mostly because he got better at anticipating Asakura's moves and dodging better. He's capable of creating energy shield and at times firing energy beams at us. He seemed to realize the longer he stayed alive, the sooner Asakura would malfunction, and that motivated him to fight harder. I wondered how much memory he retained.

Once Fujiwara was down, for the 888th time, Asakura said, 'Let's go. It's time.'

Time for - oh, that's right. 888. This would be the time we would go and talk to Nagato.

Time was precious. I ran as fast as I could, while Asakura went ahead in super-human speed. Even though I could not see anyone around, I suspected there were a few students here and there, minding their own business, not knowing the desperation I was feeling. By the time I reached Nagato's classroom, Asakura already performed her magic. Nagato was kneeling on the floor, still recovering from the effect of the phase altering. We only had 4 minutes to talk.

'Yuki, we need your help.' I said.

'Kyon, Ms Asakura. What is happening? Why are you both here? And where do the other students in the classroom go?'

I went straight to explaining everything as fast as I could, that she's actually an alien and she had powers before, that she recently lost the powers and became humanly. I then said the Mr Hasegawa was actually Fujiwara, a time traveler we dealt with not long ago, but coming back as an old man with a mission to kill me for spoiling his plan last time, and Haruhi was under his control, and we deduced that Nagato of the past knew how to counter him. While she was listening, she had an expression of someone who was just told by her parents that she's not their daughter... Despite that, our brave Nagato understood the urgency and she did not spend an extra second feeling sad for herself.

'I understand.' She sounded like her old self.

'Ms Asakura, do you have the ability to inject Fujiwara with nanomachines? If you program the nanomachines to make Fujiwraa think he has won...'

Asakura shook her head, 'No, I don't have that ability.'

'Are you able to access some level of precognition? It is kind of risky, but you will have to... kill Kyon, then see into the future on what Fujiwara does to stop the time loop, but stop him before actually doing it...'

'No, not that either.'

'Could you establish a connection with Ms Suzumiya's cell phone, and try to wake her up...'

'No, totally blocked except for 2 seconds, not enough to make a phone call.'

'Can you tap into Ms Suzumiya's power and break the time loop within that 2 seconds?'

'No.'

Nagato went silent.

I asked, 'Yuki, how do you know about all that? You shouldn't know any of that?'

'Fujiwara's talk on Wednesday at the convention. He talked about aliens. I told you. I felt like he's talking about me most of the time.'

It's obvious why Fujiwara would not want to attack me if the old Nagato's around. Nagato probably could use all of those suggestions to break us out if she still had her powers.

'Anything else you could think of, Yuki?'

Nagato shook her head. 'I am so sorry. But don't give up hope. There must be a way out.'

Asakura said, 'I am so inferior compared to you.'

'Don't give up, Ms Asakura. If you are the person I know you are, a solution will present itself.'

Asakura smiled. Just what kind of person did you think Asakura was, Nagato?

'Yuki, I have one other question for you. Why do you think Fujiwara knows so much details about the SOS brigade?'

Her face darkened. She said, 'Isn't that sort of obvious? It's my fault...'

'What?'

The school clock rang 4:00 pm. That annoying feeling was back again, and again...

Askaura said, 'Kyon, this would be the 1088th time.'

The door swung open, and there he was, Fujiwara.

After we had that chat with Nagato, I recalled we went back to her a few more times, but each time it was the same responses from her, so we had stopped involving Nagato.

Asakura was getting more irritated. She dispensed Fujiwara with increasing aggression. This time she threw Fujiwara out of the window. She then turned to me and said casually as if she didn't just murder someone, 'Well Kyon, what should we be talking about this time?'

I had nothing to say. Fujiwara's scheme was working, both Asakura and I were in despair. I said it about Asakura figuratively. Asakura walked over to the window. I did faintly recall this happened before. She looked out at the sky, contemplating things. She once said - maybe several times - that she 'enjoyed' her time being a student, despite it was somewhat 'boring'. I actually had a sense of respect for her. It would be boring for someone with immense power like her to have to babysit people like Haruhi and me, like what Nagato had been doing.

'Kyon, I am sorry, but looks like I could not save you.'

'Does this mean you have given up protecting me?' I had to be pretty bored to utter those words.

'I don't know. It would look bad on my record, but if it's imminent, maybe I wouldn't be punished too badly…' the aura around her just changed. She turned her head and looked at me with eyes like staring at a prey...

Oh boy, what just happened? Fujiwara might be the one trying to kill me, but Asakura, her killer's presence alone could give me a heart attack.

'Hey Asakura, let's go through this again, shall we? We must have options we have not yet tried…'

She spoke as she walked slowly towards me, with a knife slowly materialized in her hand, 'Did you see me throwing that old man out of the window? How many times do you think it has happened? 47! Do you know how many times I tore his limbs apart? 80! Guess how many times I tore him apart, threw his limbs out of the windows, then the rest of him?'

I was backed into a corner and she was a few feet away.

'The best I could do for you, Kyon, is that I'll try to make it as painless as possible. Okay, deal?'

'Why use a knife if you want to make it painless. Hey, wait, I don't mean that...'

She motioned she's about to slit my throat. I instinctively blocked my neck with my hands.

'Move your hands Kyon if you want to remain in one piece.'

'Hey, don't you forget about something? Fujiwara needs to be here to see you do this even if you are serious!'

'Let's call this a practice, shall we?'

That's it. I was a goner. She swung her knife at my throat. I closed my eyes. I thought to myself, 'Goodbye Haruhi. It has been fun... please don't destroy the world on behalf of my demise. Goodbye Nagato, may you live on happily. Goodbye Ms Asahina, I'll miss your tea and cosplay. Goodbye Koizumi, I'll leave you this mess to clean up... lucky bastard, he'll have all the girls to himself, but does he actually like girls?...'

Time might slow down just before one's about to die, but that was not the case here. I had time to say goodbye to everyone in my head not because I was about to die, but because the knife stopped a quarter inch from my throat.

I opened my eyes, and saw Asakura staring at the door, frozen.

'Asakura?'

No response.

'What was it?'

She just stared at the door, fascinated. She finally pulled the knife away, mumbled something quick and made some gestures with her hands, and out of nowhere, Nagato appeared and fell to the ground, panting.

'Nagato, why are you here?' I rushed over to her and was so glad to see her.

'What just happened to me... are you two okay?'

Asakura calmed down a bit. Judging from Asakura's blank look, she's as surprised as I was.

I said, 'We are okay for the moment… thanks for dropping by. Not sure how much you need me to explain, but you just teleported into an alternate dimension. So, why did you come here?'

Nagato said, 'For a moment I sensed… sensed…'

'What?'

'I sensed that you were in danger, and I rushed here.'

What could this mean? She could still sense that I was in danger?

We told her the rest of the details, with the fact that the situation appeared hopeless now. Like before, she absorbed everything quickly. It was 30 seconds before 4:10 pm.

Nagato thought for a while and said, 'I have an idea. Asakura, may I have a word with you?'

They went outside the club room and did not come back.

The school clock rang 4:00 pm. Something's wrong... very wrong...

Asakura said, 'Kyon, this would be the 1098th time.'

The door swung open, and there he was, Fujiwara.

Asakura fought with Fujiwara. As I was watching the fight, I had a very strong guilty feeling. It seemed during the last few time loops, I deduced a theory and Fujiwara pretty much confirmed it - although he never said in words that was true, his smirk of satisfaction burnt deep into my memory. This whole thing WAS MY FAULT… the reason why Fujiwara was so knowledgeable about us and was able to plan such an elaborate and precise attack was because I was the one who gave him all the information he ever needed... I became an author later in my life and wrote about my crazy stories about Haruhi and the SOS brigade.

There's something strange about the time line we're in. How could I get myself into this mess for something I had not done yet? If I swore off writing the stories right this moment, why wouldn't this all disappear? And if he killed me, he would alter the future as I would not be alive to write the stupid books that brought him here, creating a huge time paradox.

'I don't give a damn! I am old and I want my revenge!' I recalled him saying that once, perhaps many times.

I remembered Nagato blaming herself, as she was the one who asked me to become an author. Nagato, no, it's not your fault - even if I were to become an author, I should know what to write and what to leave out! For starter, I would never mention my real name...

They fought for nearly 8 minutes. Did Fujiwara get so much better?

Then Asakura stopped all of a sudden.

'Old man, we've been through this before. I have sworn to protect Kyon, but now I see that my defeat is imminent. However, I would rather you kill him instead of me. Here, I am letting you have him.' She backed away. she did not appear to be joking.

Wait, what? Did this happen before? It felt like it happened before... something bad... come on, brain... what was I supposed to do?

Fujiwara was suspicious, but he did not see how this would not work to his favor. He's got 2 minutes to end me. He walked towards me slowly, obviously tired from his dance with Asakura.

Asakura said, half-interested, 'Kyon, fight back, or you will die for sure.'

Fujiwara's strength had been his defense. His weapon - the same self-learning, self-defense device on his right wrist - was actually not very powerful. He fired a laser beam from it at me but his aim was off, and I was able to dodge. It would be a matter of time before I ran out of space to duck.

'Can we talk about this?'

'Goodbye, Kyon.' Fujiwara said.

'Keep fighting, Kyon,' Asakura said.

I threw a table then a chair at Fujiwara. He dodged them with his energy shield. I held a chair and started to swing it wildly at him, which amused him a bit. He shoved me to the ground with a force push.

'Goodbye, Kyon.'

Asakura mumbled something and made a gesture towards the door and Nagato appeared through the door. As Fujiwara was distracted, I instinctively jumped at him and tried to disarm him. He fired a couple shots towards the ceiling. The device had given him strength he should not possess at his age as he overpowered me and pulled his device down and towards me. Nagato rushed over and used her body to shield the weapon from me. Fujiwara fired. I was horrified. The shot pushed both Nagato and I back a few feet.

'No!' I screamed. Nagato was badly injured. While I was still in shock, Asakura dashed in and destroyed Fujiwara's self-defense device with a kick.

I got so angry I mustered up all my energy and punched Fujiwara in the face. Then I rushed back to Nagato and held her up. She was bleeding bad, and her eyes closed. She looked so helpless. My tears came pouring down. 'No, Yuki... Why?'

Apparently my best shot was not enough. Fujiwara got up.

I said, 'Stay back, you bastard. Let the time loop begins again. You are not hurting Yuki.'

He looked at his time device. There were only a few seconds before the time reset. He looked at Nagato and me.

'You bastard! Don't you dare!' I screamed. I probably looked horrible.

I turned to Nagato and asked, 'Yuki, can you hear me?'

She did not respond. She's too weak to respond. She opened her eyes barely, looked at me, and smiled. And then, she was gone.

3 seconds left.

Fujiwara pushed a button on his time device, said the word 'Mikuru' into it.

The closed space dissipated as usual at 4:09:58, but this time, 4:10 pm passed and went.

I yelled, 'No! What the hell?'

Asakura knocked him out cold shortly after.

'We did it,' she said.

'What the hell? I don't want this, Asakura!'

'Shut up, Kyon, that's what Ms Nagato wanted.'

There was a knock at the door. 'Hello there.' It was the adult Ms Asahina, 'I am here to take this man back to his time to answer for his crime.'

'Ms Asahina,' I said, 'Can you save Yuki, uh, Nagato?'

Ms Asahina said, 'I'm sorry I cannot. My order is to take Fujiwara back to his time, along with the devices he brought with him.'

'Please help?'

'I am sorry, but I am not allowed to.'

'Asakura, could you save Nagato?'

Asakura said, 'No. She's gone.'

Nagato's body was turning cold. This could not be happening. She saved me again. She was always ready to save me even if it cost her life. She's not some human interface - she was a true, close friend who went above and beyond.

Asakura said, 'Kyon, I'm going to reconstruct this room and surroundings. Stay still.'

Within seconds, the clubroom was good as new.

'Why couldn't you reconstruct Nagato like you did to the room?'

'Kyon,' Asakura said, 'She's dead!'

That word punched me in the stomach hard, I'd rather that be Fujiwara's weapon instead.

'Ms Asahina, you are from the future. How come you don't warn us ahead?'

'Kyon, uh, I'm not allowed to say too much, except this: The time line often has ways to self-correct. When the opportunity comes, trust your instinct.' Then she left.

I was too overwhelmed emotionally to comprehend what she just said, and I was not in the mood to talk, even though I had lots of questions.

I turned to Asakura and said, 'Ask… the Data Integration Thought Entity… please…'

'...They said no.'

The pain inside was excruciating.

'Kyon,' Asakura said, 'In case you forget, you have to go check on Ms Suzumiya and the others.'

That's right. I had to go find and check on Haruhi. Asakura was able to locate Haruhi's cell phone, and she asked me for my phone and she did something to it and said it would show me how to reach Haruhi. She said she would also take care of Nagato's body, and she had one more thing to do. I held Nagato's hands one last time, and ran towards the direction of the train station. I called Koizumi and Ms Asahina several times but neither picked up. I arrived at the place - which turned out to be the cafe we went all the time. The front door had a closed sign but the door was not locked. Mr Arakawa and Ms Mori were out cold at a table near the front door. The staff were out cold on the ground behind the counter. Everyone was still breathing. I found Ms Asahina, Koizumi and Haruhi unconscious at our usual table. I did not see any future tech lying around - it appeared the adult Ms Asahina already came by and took everything that should not be here. I slapped Koizumi on the face a few times, partly to find out how sedated he was and partly to punish him for failing to protect the ladies. It appeared a few nudges on the shoulder would be enough so that's how we woke Haruhi and Ms Asahina.

When Haruhi woke, she was confused. 'Hey Kyon, why are you here? Where's Mr Hasegawa?'

Someone in the frog suit walked in.

'Asakura?' I said.

The person removed the frog head and revealed it to be Ms Tsuruya. She said, 'Is everything okay in here?'

'Asakura?' Haruhi was dumbfounded.