I was dead tired that morning. I hadn't managed to get much sleep the night before, and I'd never been much of a morning person. If I didn't have to give Akira an answer, I might have tried skipping school, even though my grades are in bad enough shape as it is. I almost fell asleep twice just walking up that ridiculously steep hill, by the time I got to school I felt like a zombie.

I managed to get some sleep during homeroom, even afterward I was a bit tired, but I could manage.

I slept again during math and by lunchtime I wasn't tired anymore. I ate my lunch, then sat -bored- through the remaining classes until it was time for me to head to the SOS Brigade clubroom and then I sat around until Haruhi dismissed the club for the day. I headed home, like I always do.

It wasn't until I got home and saw the little cloth bundle laying beside my alarm clock that I realized Akira hadn't been there. She'd said she was going to talk to me in the morning, hadn't she? Akira had only been in the SOS Brigade for three days now, it still seemed more normal not seeing her in the clubroom, besides I was tired it's not my fault I didn't notice.

"If I'm not there... use this." That's what she said when she handed me the ... well I'm not sure what it is. She was expecting something like this to happen.

I untied the ribbon and started to unfold the cloth. Inside was a crystal pendant hanging on a chain. A necklace? Is this supposed to be a joke? I'm not laughing. I looked at the cloth again, maybe she left some instructions. I'm not sure how I hadn't noticed before but the entire inside of the piece of cloth was covered in a combination of an untidily scrawled kanji and neat cursive English letters. I couldn't read the words she'd written in English but I figured I'd at least be able to read the kanji.

"If you're reading this then I've failed.
Go back, take her with you,
Find me,
Tell that me that I reached my limit,
Make sure to keep this with you."

That's what the kanji said.

I'd have to be an idiot not to understand. 'Go back', she wants me to go back in time to meet up with her, with Asahina's help of course.

Hasn't Asahina said that she can't use the TPDD without permission from her superiors? They might not let me just randomly go back in time to help someone they've already decided was bad news. That is... unless the one who's supposed to give the approval is Asahina (Adult version), then she would remember going with me, and that's what the 'take her with you' part meant. Although even if I can safely make it to the past how am I supposed to 'find' her, Akira said she arrived here five days ago so as long as it's in that time frame she should be here... but where. I guess I'll just try all the weirdo-mechas in the city and hope I get lucky. The rest was pretty straight forward, unless the English part was 'Plan B'.

Whatever, I needed to be sure I could get to the past before I continued speculating on everything, I took out my cell phone and dialed. She picked up on the second ring, I quickly said, "Hey, Asahina... can we meet up, now?"

She agreed and we wound up meeting up at the usual cafe. After we greeted each other and ordered I cut to the chase.

"I need to go to the past."

"Eh? I can't just..." Asahina's cute flusteredness continued for a bit, "I need permission to use the TPDD... I can't... why do you need to?"

"It has to do with that new girl," I explained vaguely. Asahina wouldn't know that I'm on Akira's side yet, and the group she's working for told her that Akira was bad news, so I can't let Asahina know until the last moment.

I had hoped to whatever deity was willing to hear me out that my life would never become anymore complicated than it was on that day. Of course I had no way of knowing what was going to happen in a few weeks... but thats a story for another day.

Asahina put her palm to her ear as she often seemed to do, I guess that's something she does when contacting the future though I'm not really sure why. Suddenly her expression changed, she seemed startled, how cute.

"That's odd...it's approved," she said in a quiet tone, "...it's like they were waiting for me to ask... it's always like that when you..."

Great! I knew Asahina (big) was looking out for me!

Now I just need to decide where to go... no when is more important right now. Five days ago? Yesterday? Any date between those two would be fine, but I need to be sure I could find Akira, which wouldn't be easy. I mean I don't know where she lives, she didn't designate a meeting spot, she's not really a student at North High, so basically the only times I know she's anywhere are when she was with me but if I show up in those times it'll get confusing. I tried to think about everything she'd said, maybe she knew that this was going to happen all along, maybe there was some sort of clue in what she's said... no nothing. Although it gave me an idea, it was better than nothing.

"The end of the last class, two days ago," I said, "that's when we need to be..."

"um... ok."

We talked for a little while longer before the two of us went off to someplace where no one else would see us. Asahina and I stood facing each other with our hands clasping one another, I closed my eyes and was almost immediately hit with the -now familiar- strange sensation that comes along with time travel. When I opened my eyes again we were inside the main building of North High.

This was the day that Akira had come to the clubroom late, supposedly because she was giving me time to tell the other brigade members what she'd told me and to let them take in that information. That means that in the period of time before she got the the clubroom I may be able to contact her, assuming she's not up to something else during that time. As for where, I can probably find her in the hallway that the clubroom is on, I'll just have to make sure that the me of this time gets into the clubroom before I start waiting for her in the hall.

That much is easy. I managed to pull it off with out a hitch, of course I would because I don't remember having seen myself -or the lovely Asahina- at that time.

The only thing I was worried about was how Akira would react to seeing me, she shouldn't have any reason to suspect that I've come back in time to meet with her and that I'm officially on her side now, and also that she told me... well I don't think she told me everything. I guess that's where the rest of that message came in, and maybe the necklace was proof that I had come from the future.

I waited in the hallway for only a few minutes, and soon the moment of truth came. Akira was walking down the hall, she noticed Asahina and I after only a few seconds and instantly her expression changed. The look she now wore was one of understanding and a hint of disappointment. Her pace quickened but not in such a way that it was noticeable, in fact it may have been my imagination.

Once she had reached us she looked into my eyes and asked in a solemn tone, "I failed, didn't I?"

"That's right," I didn't really know what else to say.

"And you seem to have decided to help me now."

"...yeah."

Of course Asahina didn't understand what was going on, "Huh? Eh... helping... but Kyon! She's...!"

"You haven't told her?" Akira said casting a concerned glance at Asahina.

"No, I figured I wouldn't have been allowed to time travel if I had..."

Asahina looked really cute glancing back and forth.

"Could you explain to her in a simple way what I told you? I'd also like to hear about what I'd said to you so that I don't change it."

So I explained that the world had been infected by something that was rapidly multiplying and messing up this world as well as many others and that Akira and her comrades had gone to great lengths to get into this world so she could correct the issue, but that she had been to late and the infection had changed her course so she hadn't been able to do much about it. I also gave a summery of what she'd said would probably happen to the world if were to fail. Then finally I mentioned that Akira had given me a bundled and told me that if I decided to help but she wasn't at school the next day to 'use' it.

Asahina made a face like she was still a bit confused, honestly I was too, I didn't really get all that crap about world-lines and infections, but I at least had a general idea of what she was getting at and Asahina seemed to as well.

"Could you please give me the thing I gave you, Kyon?" Akira asked.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the necklace and the note, I handed them both to her. Her eyes seemed to light up for a moment when she saw the necklace but she immediately began to read the note and seemed to be finished reading within seconds.

"Perfect..." She muttered, seemingly to herself continuing in an odd tone as though she didn't think we could hear her, "I am a sneaky, underhanded, devious, knieving Slider aren't I? I've played right into..."

It was at that point she seemed to realized that she was speaking out loud and proceeded to clear her throat as though she hadn't said anything at all. I played along because I doubted any good could come of me asking what she was talking about. Still, I was a little curious.

"Right... right... so shall we get going?" Akira asked.

Going where? At least tell us that.

"My world of course, I'd have thought It'd be obvious," The strange girl smirked, "did you not read that note?"

"I don't read English very well." I answered, trying not to sound stupid.

"That's why I put the important part in Kanji," She said with a sigh, "It's not really necessary for you to know all of it anyway... it basically describes my plan, then there was a part that I wrote for myself to avoid confusing you. Anyway nothing dangerous will be happening to either of you, so there's no need for me to explain until we get there. Now then, if you don't have anymore important questions we'd best be off."

There were a lot of things I could question, but I decided it would be better to hold my tongue. We were about to travel to another dimension in order to save the world -which one? All of them I think- anything I was questioning suddenly seemed unimportant.

"Are you ready?"

Even if I weren't ready, I don't think that infection thing is going to give me any time to prepare. I answered, "I'm ready as I'll ever be."

Behind me I heard Asahina's hair swish as she nodded, "I'm Re-ready."

Akira reached out her hands in an obvious motion for us to grab them, naturally we did. I was hit with a near instantaneous feeling of nausea, not quite the same as time-sickness but similar. The world seemed to be spinning around us, and then every thing seemed to just fade away, a moment passed and the world reconstructed itself. For a second or two we were floating above the center of a circle of books that were lying on a wooden floor, then gravity did it's job and we came crashing down.

"Ow..." Asahina said as she began to pick herself up.

"Sorry, usually the landing would be smoother... but as it was I barely had the energy to get us here," Akira said, she didn't look especially tired but then again I guess she's talking about a different kind of energy.

Without knowing what to say to that I took a moment to look around this so-called alternate dimension. There were shelves packed tightly with books stretching out for as far as I could see, the shelves were tall enough that they vanished into a layer of clouds long past where a ceiling would be (I guess she probably uses one of those rolling ladders to reach them, or who knows maybe she can fly). Looking down I saw the aforementioned circle of books, some of them were manga, and others were light novels but they all had Haruhi's name in the title, I was even on the cover of what appeared to be the tenth manga volume.

"What is this place?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Can't you tell?" Akira replied, "This is a library."

I sure I was making a very interesting face. This place was way too big to be a library.

"This place is also my home, and I am the head librarian," Akira continued as if she were trying to clear up any misunderstandings, which was helpful.

I still didn't see quite what use it would be for us to be here, I mean it doesn't seem like we'd be able to do much of anything here that we couldn't have done in my and Asahina's world. Akira obviously doesn't have the energy to get all three of us back, so why did we even come here?

"So... what are we going to do now that we're here?"

"We aren't at our final destination yet. The location is right but we're going to go about fifty years into the past."

Oh that makes since... wait... fifty years! Isn't that a long time?

"That's time would be just before this world was reached by the infection," Akira explained, "I'll explain the situation to the me of that time, then the two of you will go with her and fix everything, and if the world the two of you came from still exists afterward then we'll take you back to it if not then you can stay in this world or if you'd prefer I'll take you to whatever world you so desire to go to."

That last part made me uneasy, Asahina seemed to be as well. The world we came from might not still exist? Of course I'm worried, but I've come too far to stop now.