Author's note: I kind of lost all my notes about this series and had to whip this up from the memories I had about where I wanted this to go. As such I've changed the direction a bit, this has much less angst that I'd planned. Also, we're getting very close to the end.

Noise of the everlasting summer nights

Repeat 594

BB radiation

by Synaps

The sun still stood high in the sky, but among the trees the temperature was bearable. We mostly kept to the shadows, except Suzumiya Haruhi. She ran around where-ever she wished without a care in the world. I can't say I didn't envy that just a bit.

The SOS Brigade were hunting cicadas.

It didn't take long for Kyon and me to end up slightly separated from the others. I had kept him with me by asking him about different insects I'd found. I stood up from the crouch I'd been in and turned to him.

"Kyon" I didn't know where to start, what do say. How much to tell him.

"What's wrong, Nagato?"

"You won't remember this, and neither will I, but I need to tell you something. I love you, and if it's to protect you... No, that's not true. I'm being more selfish than that. If it's to be together with you, I will give up everything that I am. This is no small step for me, but I'm doing it."

Kyon was looking confused. He hadn't expected this from me. Even I thought I wasn't sounding like myself, so I couldn't blame him. He didn't need to understand, he would forget about this soon enough.

Someone called out for us. It might have been Suzumiya Haruhi, but I wasn't really paying attention. As soon as Kyon was distracted I took the opportunity to slip away.

'What was that all about?' asked Ko.

"I have realized what I have to do, that is all." I paused. "I will agree to your deal."

'Really?' There was a new tone in her voice. I had never heard the real Asakura Ryoko sound so sincerely happy.

"You will stop talking to me and trying to take over my body, and I will give you one of your own."

It felt like I was forgetting something.

'I know it will take a while for you to prepare, no need to hurry. All your work will be deleted if you do it before we're out of the loop anyway...'

Was it something I was missing about the deal? No, it didn't feel that way. I knew making it was a really bad idea. There was something else in the outskirts of my mind which was bugging me. I pushed it away. There was no room for second-guessing myself at this stage.

"It's a deal."

'It's a deal.'

After that she actually quieted. It was relaxing to feel alone in my own head again.

Still, I knew she was in there somewhere. I couldn't forget that.

I quickly made my way home, dismissing the notion of doing any more cicada hunting.

-l-

The sun was setting, casting rays of orange light across the floor. I had been preparing myself the entire evening. Maybe in the end that was mostly me wasting time.

However, there was nothing left to do but begin.

I sat down, though better of it, and lay down on the floor. While in my trance it would be best to be in a position were I wouldn't easily fall over.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness envelop me as the sun fully set. With a few spoken words I pulled myself deep within my own mind.

The mental projection of the inside of my conscious was a simple, nondescript room. The only thing that was not white, besides me, was a set large wooden doors. The room I was in was a sort of hallway. Choosing any door would lead to another corridor. A set of folders within the main folder, if you will.

I turned around and walked towards the door marked 'Storage'. As I turned the handle, the door opened easily. On the other side, however, was something I had hoped to avoid.

"What are you doing?" Ko's voice were more real than it used to be, probably because I had entered the only place were she was truly real.

"I..." I wasn't prepared for this. I had hoped agreeing to her deal would distract her long enough for me to take care of this. I kept my voice even. "I need to take care of a couple of things. It's really none of your business"

"When you say it like that it really makes me think it is."

"I wanted to look up my records, to find the easiest way to get you a body. That's all."

"Now you're just lying!" She was angry. "You're planning something, aren't you!?"

There it was again. The feeling I was missing something. Then I realized.

"You're angry. How can you be angry? Before you had no emotions, I could sense it! This morning too, you were happy back then. What are you?"

She hesitated. Another emotion she shouldn't have. Until know, hadn't she been the perfect emotionless interface? She had been focused on her goal, but she hadn't felt any emotion about success, right? Maybe I'd been to focused on myself to notice it until now.

"Fine. I admit it. I... am more than one entity. Back when you and Asakura Ryoko were fighting, you had already developed a couple of human emotions. One of them were pity, which you felt as you deleted her from existence. She died without even once feeling happiness. Part of you did not want that to happen. As such, you created two beings within your subconscious. One was Asakura Ryoko as you knew her, modeled after the way you saw her. One was Asakura Ryoko as a human, the girl you wished she had been. Those two merged almost immediately, to form me. They are one, yet they are still separate inside of me."

That explained why I couldn't find any corrupted data when I tried to delete Ko, so long ago. She was my creation, not an outside influence.

"If I created you, then I can delete you."

"I guess that depends on which one of us is stronger. However, as I recall it, we had a deal."

"You've already broken your end of the bargain. You're the one who spoke to me first, remember."

"That's... That you're here to begin with means you never had any plans of keeping your end. You were planning something when you bumped into me."

"Yes, I was." I moved swiftly, she had no time to react as I pushed my hand through her stomach. In the end it was my subconscious we were in. I had the advantage.

Authors note: I decided to cut this chapter into two parts, for a couple of reasons.

1. I want to at least try making the chapters of somewhat even length.

2. So I could publish it sooner.

The next part will hopefully be out this week.

A note on the chapter name: A black-body doesn't reflect any radiation. The point being that Nagato isn't insane, and Ko isn't really a reflection of her mental state. Still, I didn't want to name the chapter 'The Black-Body', because that kind of sounded... so I just used the short-hand I've developed for taking notes in class.

On a slightly related tangent: The magnitude scale is way too hard to translate into the corresponding flux, and that's partly why I can't find time to write.