Disclaimer: The novel series of Suzumiya Haruhi that began with 'The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi' is the creation of Nagaru Tanigawa. No disrespect is intended by the posting of this fanfiction, as I do not own the characters or settings involved. I'm merely dabbling with another set of paints. TVtropes (the website) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License (and it's possible that this fic technically is, too; seems fair to me). Additional characters are borrowed from Higurashi, which is the creation of Ryukishi07.
Notes: Count the tropes! Save, collect, trade for swell prizes!
"Chapter Seven: Walking Into the Trap"
"To put it simply, as you know you are walking into a trap, any time you feel very confident about your ability to handle it is the ideal time to reconsider."
"Roll With the Punches" -- Tadamichi Kyousuke
Asakura Ryouko had finally determined why the entity had sent her into a situation she was destined to fail.
It had taken a considerable amount of time to download the database that Haruhi had told Ryouko would explain the meaning of the term 'Team Pet', but once she had, Ryouko realized with mild surprise that there was an odd amount of parity data within that database to much of the IDSE's observations of humanity in general. Given enough data points and time to grow, Ryouko suspected that the memetic functions of the database would eventually exceed the input of its users, and from there, might become another one of the entities that the IDSE had observed spanning the worlds of reality.
She doubted it would be any time soon, and judging by which entries Haruhi -- and Kyon -- had referred her to, she especially doubted it would want to ally with her against the Brigade.
And worse, she'd made absolutely no headway in understanding the bizarre, tangled nest of white-text-ed blue menu-boxes that comprised the majority of her interaction options with the world around her!
It wouldn't be so bad if Yuki would at least give her a clue.... Yuki didn't seem to want to interact with her, though, beyond washing her when the slider had commented that Ryouko had gotten dusty.
She wished she could get better communication with Yuki to understand what was going on, but decided that it was ultimately irrelevant. As she was present for the Brigade's planning sessions, she knew all of the details. 'Good child' mode or otherwise, even if she couldn't lie, she wasn't obligated to volunteer information.
Which meant that for all of their preparation to handle Sasaki's allies ... they wouldn't be aware of the presence of Kimidori Emiri until it was too late.
Already forming plans around those contingencies, she'd made a copy of all the data she observed in captivity so far, prepared to pass it off to her fellow loyal IDSE agent. So when her prey finally freed her from the impenetrable cardboard walls of her nighttime prison for the daily journey to school, she waited, as always.
Considering the myriad contingencies and plans that Haruhi had insisted they set up, Kyon found himself enjoying the lunch meeting. The only worrisome point of the day was that his sister's weekend cold had progressed, and she was home sick.... Still, she didn't seem to be contagious, and his mother wasn't too worried about her.
"Say," Haruhi wondered, frowning, distracting him from his thoughts, "how much longer are your aunt and uncle in town, anyway?"
"Uncle Keiichi took her back to Hinamizawa on Saturday," he answered. "He came back this morning, though."
"That's a bit odd. Wouldn't she stay though the weekend? She came early, but left the day after her signing?" Haruhi mused.
Tsuruya giggled, saying, "She probably missed her daughters!"
Kyon nodded; that did make sense. He glanced over to where Kanae was poking at her bento, having only eaten a handful of bites. "What's wrong, Kanae-chan?" he asked. "Nervous?"
She nodded, blushing at the attention.
"It makes sense enough to be nervous ... but unless I mistake things, the greatest of our enemies will be the one that is not present," Koizumi remarked, offering her a smile.
She smiled back nervously. "T...that's true.... Um.... I guess it's very lucky they aren't around at the same time," she agreed. Then she shook her head. "Ah, but ... Sempai and Koizumi-san can beat them, anyway! So if they're stronger, this should be easier, right?"
"That's what we're thinking," Haruhi agreed. "Koizumi -- you're sure you can do it?"
"Thanks to Nagato-san's help, I have significantly more confidence in my abilities," the esper said brightly, nodding. "I tried it last night, just to be sure -- it worked without any problems."
Haruhi nodded at that, scanning across the room thoughtfully. Yuki sat at the table reading yet another new manga. The Brigade chief glanced at the title and asked, "'Hoshi no Samidare'? Is it any good?"
Yuki nodded in return, glancing at Kyon. "Unique," she murmured.
He commented, "The artist of that particular manga ... I remember it now. He wanted the English name of the series to be 'The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer'. I actually understand what Yuki-chan is talking about this time when she says it's unique -- that one's different, alright."
"Do you think I would like it?" Mikuru wondered.
"Maybe ... come to think of it, the main heroine is named Asahina, too," Kyon answered. "Though she's ... very different from Asahina-san, I think."
The time traveler gave the shorter girl a cautious smile and asked, "Yuki-chan ... do you think I could borrow that when you're done?"
"Yes," Yuki answered softly. "I would be ... happy to lend it to you."
"I like that," Haruhi approved.
Yuki didn't quite smile, but her gaze briefly went to Kanae before returning to Mikuru. "Michikyuu Kanae may also have something for you."
"What's this, then?" Haruhi mused.
Kanae started, then gave a small pout. "If I do, then doesn't Yuki-san have something for Suzumiya-sempai?"
"Now I really want to know!" Haruhi exclaimed, grinning. "What have you two been up to?"
The slider giggled at that, shaking her head. "It's a surprise," she decided, grinning back.
Haruhi looked briefly shocked before she burst into laughter, shrugging her shoulders and ruefully allowing the secret.
Kyon felt a smile forming, unbidden. If the brigade could have moments like this, even in the face of impending conflict, then maybe things would work out. All things considered, he felt remarkably confident about the trap he was supposed to be walking into.
Within her 'borrowed' office, Miyuki paced back and forth, considering all of the information she had accumulated. As much as it irritated her, she wasn't making any headway on discovering more about Kyon.
She was tracking the motions of the Sumiyoshi-rengo to the best of her ability, and even more of them had crawled into Nishinomiya over the previous few days. The Tsuruya branch of the Yamaguchi-gumi hadn't done anything she'd been able to catch in response yet -- except, inexplicably, to arrange for lawyers for the members of Fujiya Masao's gang.
There were a number of lawyers, and Miyuki had fully expected to see some backer revealed; a legal representative couldn't hide his identity while doing his job, normally. In this instance, however, it seemed some unknown figure was behind the legal team, but because he wasn't representing anyone himself, his identity didn't need to be revealed.
That bothered her especially.
She could only think it was done to conceal who was assisting the Tsuruya branch. That worried her, because the Yamaguchi-gumi had no real reason to hide anything they did on that level. Unless ... possibly ... they were hiding a newly joined member of their syndicate?
That could be.... Did it somehow tie back to Kyon, though?
She sighed, realizing she wasn't even certain which thread of the complicated mess she was exploring at the moment. One of them would be loose, though....
Interrupting her thoughts, her cell-phone rang. She reflexively answered, "This is Akasaka."
"This is also Akasaka," her father replied, chuckling mildly.
She felt her face color with embarrassment. "Ah, hello, Father!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry-- Work has been.... Well, you know."
"Indeed I do," he agreed. "And that's why I'm calling you actually."
Miyuki blinked, staring without registering the notification that popped up on her laptop's screen. "You know something about my current case?" she wondered, surprised.
"Hmm? No, but a friend of mine from the country called me recently -- you remember him from when you were growing up?"
She frowned, thinking back. He was a bit older than her, she thought.... From the same area where-- "Kei-san?" she blurted in surprise, turning around and pacing in a small circle, glancing over as her laptop went into power-saving mode and the screen went dark. "I suppose I haven't seen him in a few years, have I?"
"That's right! Miyuki-chan, I worry that you work too hard -- like I used to. You haven't got a husband to pull you away from the desk once in a while, so why don't you take some time off work? You supervisor tells me he's worried, too.... So join us in the country for a week!"
"A week?" she wondered. She could clear it, she supposed.... It wasn't like her current case was going anywhere at the moment. She was effectively stuck again until a new lead came through -- though with the leeway from the last bust, she was certain they would give her at least a month and a half.
"Absolutely," he insisted. "The most important part will be the festival at the end -- you remember?"
Miyuki laughed softly at that. "Yes.... It will be good to see Kei-san and the others.... Does Rika-san still perform the ceremony?"
"It's her daughter, now-- But you'll come, right?"
"Yes," Miyuki agreed, rubbing at her eyes. "I will -- I promise. Thank you for calling me, Father; you're right. Some time in the country, away from work...."
He chuckled. "I'll arrange transportation and everything -- just come meet me and your mother in Tokyo by the eleventh."
"I'll come in the evening before," she decided, glancing at the calendar.
"Good; I'll look forward to it! Until then, your mother sends her love. Take care, Miyuki-chan!"
"Thank you, Father," she replied, before disconnecting.
She spent a moment staring at her phone. She hadn't given herself any time off in a long while, she realized. She was so busy trying to accomplish everything before she worried about getting promoted out of the field.... Pocketing her phone, she rubbed at her eyes again.
It wouldn't hurt to take a little time off as it was -- the rest of the evening, she was sure, would be fine. She was certain she wouldn't miss anything, as hard as mysterious factors had been pushing to hand her information. She'd started at four in the morning, following a dead-end lead that had suggested she would be able to identify the unknown legal-team supervisor.... Some rest would be well-deserved, really.
The clear, warm day felt somehow wrong to Kyouko. Like things should have been much gloomier than they looked -- because in reality, they were darker.
The interior of the car was cool enough, thanks to the air conditioning, but she could have done without the present company. Kyouko was fairly sure that Sasaki didn't like Takahashi either, but at the moment, Sasaki wasn't on good speaking terms with Kyouko.
She wasn't placed highly enough in her organization to understand all of the details, but it had been percolating down through the ranks for a while, and some small factors were clear enough. Something with Haruhi and her powers had changed at some point, though it took quite some time for any of their spies to report anything on their enemies.
As far as Kyouko had heard, one of the best of their spies was captured -- evidently around the same time that things had gotten changed.
From that, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted away from them, and in Kyouko's perception, her superiors had started trying increasingly desperate measures to try and win things back. Hence the current state of affairs, where no-one was happy.
"Are you clear on what you need to do?" Takahashi asked, causing a nervous shiver to run down Kyouko's spine.
"I don't think it's safe," she mumbled in answer. "W...what if something goes wrong?"
"I don't think about that, and neither should you," Takahashi answered sharply. "Are you clear?"
Kyouko looked away. "I'll do it," she said, wishing she didn't sound so weak ... or that she could fight back against Takahashi without-- "But, your promise?"
"Do your part, and there will be nothing to worry about," the older woman answered confidently.
Most of all, scrubbing at the tears she could feel forming in her eyes, Kyouko wished she could believe that.
Confident he could deal with any surprises that Sasaki's friends might have in store, Kyon tried to focus himself on the impending discussion. They did want to talk, so even if it was a trap, there was still the chance of being able to work some sort of compromise out....
...though, if it involved chasing Sasaki with thugs, he suspected he might have to force the issue a bit.
Anxious, unable to settle himself well, he waited before the train station, deciding to wear his coat openly. It garnered a few odd looks, and he didn't need it to be visible, but it should give a clear enough message to Fujiwara or anyone else that he was ready for a fight if it came down to it.
When he turned to look, he spotted Sasaki heading toward him through the evening crowd, her expression clearly relieved as she pushed through the last knot of people to reach his side, slightly short on breath. "Kyon!" she called, smiling. "It's good to see you again!"
"I'm glad to see you're doing well," he allowed. "Or ... are you still being troubled?"
"It seems I'm always troubled these days," she returned, shaking her head slightly. "Thanks to you, though, it's much easier than it could be! I'm very fortunate to have you on my side."
He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. Praise from Sasaki was almost as rare as praise from Haruhi.
That thought made him feel uncomfortable for some reason, but he managed to keep his smile anyway. "Do you think that we can talk things out peacefully with your friends?" he wondered.
"I'm positive that you can make peace with anyone I would consider a friend," she allowed, her smile slipping before she sighed, her gaze dropping to the sidewalk as she looked away. "Um.... Kyon-kun, if it's not too strange, do you think maybe ... we could ... not go?"
He blinked in surprise at that. "Not go?" he wondered. "You mean-- You want to put this off?"
She shook her head. "I don't want to do it at all," she clarified. "I can't know everything, but I know enough to be bothered -- it feels like ... Kyouko's allies, whoever they are.... It feels like they're trying very hard to get you into a specific situation. I don't ... know enough of what you do to understand what exactly that is, but ... it worries me. They must feel they have the advantage in this situation, or they wouldn't have requested this meeting."
He scratched the back of his neck again, even more uncomfortable than before. "If we were to avoid this meeting, what do you think would happen?" he wondered.
She opened her mouth to reply, then sighed, deflating slightly. "Yes ... ignoring the problem wouldn't make it go away.... Ah, I wish sometimes it would, though! It's too bad the world can't really work that way, sometimes," she mused.
Kyon found himself forcibly resisting the impulse to take her hand and give her a reassuring hug; this was his friend Sasaki, not one of the girls he was dating, after all. Being close with more than one girl made it difficult to control those nearly subconscious urges. He made a mental note to ask Yuki for help with that, then shook his head, offering Sasaki what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Let's face it and overcome it together," he encouraged. "Maybe it will turn out to be a peaceable discussion after all?"
She gave him another smile, then, the one that she gave him when she humored him, but thought he was wrong. "Perhaps," she allowed.
"If we can't reach an accord, we can still hope that this discussion is civil," he tried, instead.
"That's true," she allowed, giving him a sidelong glance and allowing a tiny, hopeful smile to come to her lips. "I'm not ... certain what it was that passed between you and Fujiwara, but I hope that you can work with him. I know he can be an incredibly rough person, so...."
He gave one last encouraging nod as they stepped through the door into the cafe, and Sasaki spotted her friends, taking a table near the center of the cafe. She led the way with slight reluctance -- it was a table, not a booth, and Fujiwara was leaning indolently across the seat at the 'head' of the table, leaving spaces between himself and Kuyou for Kyon and Sasaki. Opposite that side, and looking uncomfortably nervous, was the twin-tailed female esper, Tachibana Kyouko.
Sasaki hesitated a moment, and then took the seat closer to Kuyou, while Ryouko -- still in his greatcoat pocket, and presumably invisible to everyone except for possibly Kuyou -- began to flail her arms silently in agitation, staring fixedly at the dark-haired girl in undisguised fear.
Uncertain why, but suspecting he probably trusted Kuyou more than Ryouko anyway, he took the seat nearer to the blond, eying Fujiwara warily.
For his part, the other time traveler checked his watch with a slight frown, and turned his attention out the front window.
"Well," Sasaki announced, once they had ordered their drinks, "now that we are all here ... what is it that must be discussed?"
"I don't have any investment in this discussion," Fujiwara returned almost instantly. "I'm here by request and for certain other reasons; I have nothing else to say."
"No comments about last Monday?" Kyon wondered, raising an eyebrow.
Fujiwara looked away sharply. "Further information is not available here," he grumbled, prompting Kyon to blink at hearing the phrase he'd come up with to try and avoid 'classified information' from another time-traveler.
"Y...yes, well," Sasaki mumbled, frowning, giving Fujiwara an uncertain look. "Um ... Kuyou-chan?"
Her eyes swung toward Kyon -- but seemed to catch on something halfway, and she instead turned to look at Kyouko.
Clearing her throat uncomfortably and staring at the table, Kyouko hesitantly began, "Ah ... this is.... S...so, Kyon, I must assume that ... certain person has told you all sorts of unkind things about us...."
"Merely that much is unknown," Kyon offered, shaking his head. "I know more of you from Fujiwara and Sasaki than from Koizumi, if that's what you're getting at."
"W...well, let me explain a little, then," Kyouko continued, seeming to gather a little confidence as she held her teacup between her hands. "Um ... as you know, Suzumiya Haruhi is a person of a certain interest to our groups. What you may not know is that Sasaki is a similar person -- and ... the relationship between her and myself is not very different from the relationship between Suzumiya Haruhi and Koizumi. Understand?"
Kyon mulled it over, considering. Sasaki looked doubtful, watching Kyouko warily.
"You're saying," he said slowly, "that Sasaki also generates closed spaces?"
"Yes," she managed, raising her eyes. They looked strangely reddened, and she flinched away the second their eyes met, dropping her gaze and staring fixedly at his tie. "Um ... well, rather than continue ... I can show you what I mean." Hesitantly, she set her hands on the table, palms up. "T...take my hands."
He paused, thinking about things. Wouldn't that be a risk? If Kyouko had powers in closed space, it could end up being very bad for him....
"What exactly do you hope to accomplish with this?" Sasaki wondered, shaking her head with a faintly amused smile. "Kyouko, surely it's time to stop playing that game now?"
Kyon leaned back slightly in his seat and considered things again, trying to surreptitiously keep his eye on Fujiwara. For his part, the blond time-traveler's eyes flicked around, not seeming to target anyone. In a flash of insight, Kyon realize the other time traveler was consulting his augmented reality, probably reading notes or something to do with the current situation.
His first instinct was to decline, but then ... she wanted to show him something, and was asking for his trust. It wasn't like they could just abduct him, like they had tried with Mikuru.... Ryouko was too busy being evidently terrified of Kuyou to offer any opinion on the subject, and didn't consider the esper worthy of attention.
"Alright," he allowed, shifting his shoulders and leaning forward to uncertainly take Kyouko's smaller hands in his own. They were slightly damp -- the esper must have been nervous about his reluctance.
"Um ... please close your eyes," she mumbled.
He obliged, remembering how Koizumi had shown him closed space once. At least this time, he thought belatedly, it was a girl he was holding hands with.
Kyouko released his hands, and he opened his eyes. The world about him seemed ... almost identical, actually. There was a muted sensation of ... everything somehow, being suppressed, held neatly into a static, stiff state.
"H...here," she said, shifting her shoulders and climbing to her feet. "This ... is the space that Sasaki makes. It covers the entire world."
"And you haven't destroyed it?" Kyon wondered, rising to his feet and following her to the door. Closed spaces were bad, generally. This one seemed to be lacking a shinjin though, at least at the moment. Maybe there was a real difference, because it came from Sasaki?
"Why would we want to?" Kyouko asked, shaking her head. "This place is perfect, isn't it? Suzumiya Haruhi's spaces may be dangerous -- but these are ideal!" She seemed about to say more before her eyes shifted away from his and she deflated, her slowly reviving cheer fading away.
"I see," he allowed, less than convinced. For whatever reason, Ryouko had not transfered into the closed space with him ... that was somewhat worrying. "Well ... what is this supposed to show me?"
"It's a lie," she confessed, looking away, her face twisting as though in pain. "But-- But--" She shook her head fiercely and shot him a pleading look. "Even if it's just here and now-- You must understand that I'm not this sort of person! I wouldn't-- I'm sorry, but...." Then her face fell, and she began sobbing in earnest while he remained standing, uncertain of how to react to any of this.
She stamped one foot abruptly and shot him a glare, but it was weak, struggling to pierce her own misery. "I t...told them that your allies had threatened my family!" she accused him. "S...so now.... So now if I don't do this ... my family...." She shook her head slowly, tears trickling down her face.
"Calm down," he said insistently. "Explain this to me, and maybe we can help you out."
"I'm sorry," she said, a final time, before her outline wavered, became indistinct, and then, she was gone.
Looking around the space he was trapped in, empty of people, he began to wonder if maybe he should have followed his first instinct.
Sasaki hadn't expected much from Kyon holding Kyouko's hands, and to her, other than a strange stab of emotion she refused to acknowledge, nothing had happened to either of them.
She opened her mouth to ask what Kyon thought was happening, but before she could even speak, Kuyou had whipped around in her seat with alarming speed, rising to her feet and sending her chair tumbling across the restaurant floor behind her. The green-haired waitress that Sasaki dimly recognized was reaching toward Kyon with a cup of coffee on a saucer, and Kuyou had seized her hand.
Even though it was only her friend grabbing -- for some reason -- a passing waitress, Sasaki got the distinct impression that both girls were putting all of the strength at their disposal in their odd, unmoving struggle, Kuyou's dark eyes locked intently on the stranger's.
"I've learned enough from our last encounter that this will not go the way you anticipate," the waitress warned.
Kuyou blinked slowly in seeming incomprehension.
Kyouko released a quiet sniffle.
Fujiwara's eyes widened and he turned to look at the twin-tailed girl with an expression of utter horror, even though everyone else was staring at the grappling pair.
The question Sasaki had started to form finally escaped, and she managed to ask, "What's happening?"
"I'm sorry," Kyouko whispered weakly. "I d...didn't want to do that...."
"I told you that in trust!" Fujiwara suddenly exploded at Kyouko, throwing his chair behind him as he rose to his feet, glaring at her. "I told you-- That was--"
"I'm sorry!" Kyouko cried, flinching in on herself further. "I had to!"
"You stupid--" He blinked suddenly, then spun, charging for the rear exit of the restaurant.
"Someone explain what's going on!" Sasaki cried, becoming more and more concerned, grabbing Kyon's elbow and shaking him gently. "Kyon? Kyon!"
He didn't react, and Sasaki was so distracted with him, she didn't notice the new arrivals until Takahashi's long-familiar goons had surrounded her, hauling her bodily away from Kyon. She tried to make sense of the scene, barely able to keep calm enough to shout for help before a large hand clapped over her mouth.
Abductions in broad daylight? That was too far, even for Takahashi! And why wasn't Kyon moving? His eyes were still closed as though....
No -- had Kyouko somehow pricked him with a hidden needle? Maybe some obscure contact sedative? One way or another, they'd drugged or disabled Kyon, she realized, despairing as another group of men dressed identically to the ones pulling her away descended on Kyon. So ... Kyouko's betrayal ... Kuyou was caught up with that strange waitress ... Fujiwara had run away....
And that was how it ended?
"You promised!" Kyouko wailed between tears. "You said my family would be okay, and that you wouldn't hurt Sasa--" The rest of her protest was cut off with the sudden crackling chatter of a stun-gun, and the girl writhed for the duration of the charge in silence before slumping to the floor, eyes crossed and mumbling incoherently.
No ... Kyouko had been betrayed, too....
Sasaki had believed in Kyon, but even he wasn't invulnerable. She felt a nameless, hopeless dread begin to well up as her captors dragged her to the street and shoved her into the back of a minivan, Takahashi's familiar presence in the passenger seat. Her last glimpse before the door shut was of Kyon's prone form being pulled into another van.
Why hadn't she fought harder to avoid the meeting?
Nervously on standby, Kanae waited with the rest of the brigade that hadn't been sent into the field. At the moment, the only 'fielded' members of the brigade were her sempai and Koizumi; the rest of their support was a handful of carefully placed men that answered to Tsuruya.
Set up around a large table in one of Tsuruya's meeting rooms, Haruhi took center, with Tsuruya to her right, and Mori opposite the pair of them. Mikuru had gotten a proper first-aid kit from somewhere, and it was sitting at the table -- thankfully, unused. Kanae was pretty sure that Yuki could take care or any injuries, but understood the need to do something that felt useful.
Tsuruya's phone sat face-up in the center of the table, currently echoing the conversations that were going on around Kanae's sempai; Ryouko was passing that on, somehow. "Itsuki-kun is still monitoring the area around the cafe," the woman reported. "Nothing to report yet."
Kanae grew especially nervous when she heard that other girl insist that her sempai should take her hands....
Haruhi didn't seem to like it either, but after some thought Kyon went through with it anyway.
From there, the discussion shifted, Kanae's sempai and Kyouko both falling silent while everyone stared intently at their point of contact.
"A pair of vans are speeding down the street toward the cafe," Mori said with a frown, one fingertip to an ear-piece she was wearing.
"I'm sorry," Kyouko whispered, just barely caught by Kyon's phone and sent to the room they waited in.
"Kanae-chan," Haruhi ordered without hesitation, "go get Kyon."
She didn't even wait to hear the final syllables before jumping to her sempai.
Her jump didn't work quite right, though -- she felt herself leaping through space, to that place between spaces -- and strangely, somehow ... her sempai was in two places at the same time. She wasn't able to process how that happened quickly enough to react, but some force she didn't understand rebuffed her from one instance of him, and she stumbled, unbalanced into the arms of another.
"W...what?" she managed, looking around in alarm. She was supposed to grab her sempai and then flee to safety, but ... it seemed the two of them were alone in an eerily still, abandoned cafe?
Turning her senses to her sempai, she prepared to grab him and jump away. Except ... somehow ... she could feel that he was stuck! Something was holding....
Her head hurt and she released him, raising her hands to her temples and whimpering. "Sempai," she said anxiously, "how are you..." she trailed off as realization set in. He wasn't in two places at once -- precisely. Only part of him was in each location.
"What's going on?" he asked her, looking much calmer than she felt.
She wondered if she could fix that. Could she? Yuki would know how to, she was sure.... She reached out with her senses, but that same invisible force was still blocking her ability to jump to wherever the rest of him was. "I'm trying to un-stick you," she offered hesitantly. "Um ... how did you get here?"
"Their esper asked to show me something, brought me here, and then left," he said, turning to look around at the eerily still surroundings. "I don't think she was crying in joy when she left me here, either -- so it seems she expects something bad to happen if we wait around too long."
"Something ... is blocking my ability to pull the rest of you here," she said in frustration, shaking her head. "It's blocking me from getting to you, too!"
He raised his eyebrows at that. "Probably Fujiwara, then," he deduced, crossing his arms over his chest. "Okay, Kanae-chan. Don't worry about it too much; if things here aren't working, then go ahead and explain what's going on to Haruhi and Yuki-chan, alright?"
She winced at that. So, all of her training, her practice, and her resolve to help her sempai ... and all she could really do was show up and tell him he was sorry she wasn't more useful?
Focusing herself, feeling her will sharpen in her mind until it was keen enough to pierce space itself, she hesitated. Maybe ... maybe she just wasn't trying hard enough. "I will help you, Sempai!" she swore, throwing herself at his other location as hard as she could-- Suddenly finding that this time, there was no resistance whatsoever.
Startled, she unleashed a yelp as she found herself in a confined space, sprawled across her sempai's limp form, and surrounded by equally surprised, but more menacing figures. Clinging to the momentum of her jump, she wrapped her arms around the body below her and wrenched herself back to her sempai's original location.
The transition was remarkably simple, once she crossed back, some part of her mind aligning everything that represented her sempai with the other half of him, still waiting in that strange space-- Before she could even recover from her stumble, he'd already been restored.
"I.... I did it!" she exclaimed happily, feeling intensely dizzy.
He grabbed her in a hug, lifting her off the ground. "That was amazing work, Kanae-chan! I'm so grateful, I won't even tell Haruhi that you disobeyed my order," he assured her.
She gasped as he winked at her, setting her down while her face reddened, unable to deny the twin surges of embarrassment and happiness.
"Alright -- what's happening in the real world?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," she confessed. "You were in a van surrounded by some unfamiliar looking men.... Not the ones working for Tsuruya-san!"
"Can you take us to the cafe?" he wondered. He glanced at his pocket and added, "Now that she's here, Ryouko should be able to give you coordinates."
"I have them," Ryouko said, her voice strangely shaky. "Confidence rating, sixty five percent."
Kanae wondered what had bothered the small figure, but studied the symbol that Ryouko projected before her in an augmented reality screen. Yuki had trained her how to use those to go to specific locations she was unfamiliar with. Confident she had it, she took her sempai's hand and the pair of them jumped....
This time, she found herself too weak and dizzy to stand after the jump. Her sempai caught her immediately, and she was alarmed to realize that they were in some other, even more different space! How had she missed reality? The sky was dark, and the place felt emptier than the last -- but not as still. "W...where are we?" Kanae asked, her previous confidence draining away.
"Some place terrifying and dangerous!" Ryouko wailed. "It's a whole universe that ends just past the earth's orbit!"
Her sempai looked around for a moment -- they were standing on a sidewalk, not far from what looked like another empty copy of the cafe her sempai had been in. She leaned against him, facing the same direction, incidentally half inside his great-coat, as one of his arms was around her. "I know this place," he said, nodding slightly, just before there was the merest flicker of color, and the cafe exploded.
The vast majority of Kuyou's spin had recently been readjusted, trying to glimpse the edges of some event that had passed beyond the boundaries of observation. The Chorus reverberated at the lack, keenly resonating, unable to harmonize to something that could not be sensed.
She had to give up, instead searching all that was observable for some trace or record. The Song could not be stretched far enough to reclaim what was lost, and it had taken almost four million rotations to repair the damage done to her projected form.
In that time, her observations revealed that she had attempted to occult Kyon from danger, encountering Kimidori Emiri. After that, Kuyou observed that she had shifted her frequency into Noise, or some other state that was outside of the Song.
Observing further events, she saw that another encounter between Kyon and Kimidori Emiri was approaching. At the suggestion of an instance of Fujiwara, she narrowed her focus to that smaller band of herself, and entered a construct of various inert masses, some of which were more conductive of energy than others.
Kuyou had not known what form the conflict would take, only that it would occur. The entire Chorus resonated with possibility from the coming encounter, after all.
From the beginning, which started with simple memetic exchanges, Kuyou's focus and spin were devoted entirely onto expanding her awareness and maintaining her shadow-song, weaving those distant strings carefully. She felt the Chorus tremble with the impact of Kyouko's action as she altered Kyon's vibrational frequency.
Noise spread from the space around them, the Chorus automatically redirecting the imbalance against itself. This backlash would cause Kyon's form to change, substituting atomic portions of his makeup with other matter, until he was redistributed through the material of the Song. Just as automatically, she redirected some of her spin to counter that effect.
She wondered what it meant that she had failed to otherwise occult him, until she became aware of the presence of Kimidori Emiri, subtly shaping string as her physical form's hand moved across the table toward Kyon. The entity had tried to conceal a quantum probability alteration within the confines of an irregular crystal assembled from hardened aluminum silicate, needing only to be correctly aligned with the space before Kuyou to trigger. Kuyou intercepted the hand and locked gazes with Kimidori, sending spin to her shadow-song to work around the limitations of Sasaki's observation.
The physical strength the two brought to bear was nothing beyond what should be possible for a human body -- neither was willing to exceed that, yet.
Another, smaller entity, this one evidently subordinate to Kyon, judging by its position in his pocket, frantically made strange gestures at her, and looked pleadingly at Kuyou's opponent. Sensing the impending transmission, Kuyou whispered a single note, increasing her memetic density to capture the transfer between the entity in Kyon's pocket and Kuyou's opponent.
Unable to make sense of the arrangement, she stretched her observation of it to extend to some point several million rotations away, incidentally destroying the string composing it, while preserving the raw memetics. Strange.
Around the embattled pair, unfamiliar humans entered the location and physically removed Sasaki.
Kuyou thought that was good. The removal of her observation would allow Kuyou to expend the several minutes of spin from her shadow-song simultaneously. More unfamiliar humans had physically removed Kyon, which she determined was another failure to correctly occult him. The Chorus observed and echoed to her that an Other had adjusted Kyon's state somehow, restored to a form that did not generate Noise.
This was a profound observation; never before had an Other been observed intentionally preserving the harmony of the Song.
She was aware of the Chorus reacting to the reverberations, but adjusted her focus to a tighter span, directing her observations into an even smaller space once more.
Emiri stared at her, neither of them blinking. Kuyou counted five rotations, and the instant that all of her required elements were free of dangerous observation, she altered the vibrations of herself and her opponent to her shadow-song, simultaneously expanding her awareness. The next rotation, she converted her stored spin into direct physical force, shattering most of Emiri's carefully constructed string assemblies, and sending the rest too far away to work correctly.
Some aspect of Emiri's being acted to preserve her physical form. Kuyou attuned herself perfectly to the collection of mostly iron and oxygen below her, expanding its influence on Emiri by orders of magnitude, and struggling -- but managing to limit the effects to Emiri's physical form alone.
The entity's form was not intended to be subjected to that much gravity, but hers held together with an echoing discordance, and Kuyou spared a rotation to observe that string arrays deflected the worst of the force as Emiri's form bored straight down. It took Kimidori Emiri fifty five rotations to assemble a structure from string that allowed her to escape, and at that point she was somewhere between the sphere below her, and the smaller attendant that orbited it.
Tidal stresses and castoff energy from Emiri's passage would cause the entire mass of the larger sphere to collapse into a molten morass within the next million rotations. She would need to stretch them, but in her observation, living beings did not endure that well.
Kuyou turned her attention to her surroundings, seeing Kyon in the street with the trembling Other. The street was torn up from the backlash of her released power, and most of the buildings in the vicinity had been obliterated, lying in disorganized jumbles of parts. The street just beneath Kyon was undamaged in a perfect circle.
"I have the strange idea that this is going to happen every time I end up in your space," Kyon remarked. "Was this another miscalculation?"
"That event is outside of my observation," she answered, reaching a hand out toward him. He started at something, reacting to a memetic projection from the entity at his side.
He turned to the smaller entity, nodding as he pocketed the assembly that directed most of the energies arranged around him. Those energies reformed, protecting the Other at his side from more hostile background forces.
"Before anything else, Suou-san," Kyon asked cautiously, "can you tell me what Tachibana was planning with that?"
She shook her head.
Frowning slightly, Kyon nodded and took Kuyou's hand as she adjusted their frequencies, returning them to the Song proper.
Yuki would have been much more comfortable following the boy she enjoyed spending so much time with more closely, but at the moment that was Koizumi's task. She also would have liked to retrieve Kyon when it seemed that -- somehow -- Tachibana Kyouko trapped him somewhere, but that task was assigned to Michikyuu Kanae.
Her assignment at the moment was to watch for enemy interfaces, though she couldn't sense any from her current location. Unbidden, a notification from the memories she had sealed away recently registered, and in response, she slightly altered the structure of the trap she had assembled to try and capture any sliders that might happen to interrupt.
"Incoming," she announced, two seconds before half of the room was filled with a crackling sphere of dark energy, immense tidal forces compressed into a thin shell. The power was threatening impossible damage in terms of energy-bleed-off, yet sharply constrained within a shell that just avoided all contact with the protective field that Kyon had authorized Haruhi and Yuki to establish earlier.
Interesting.
Suou Kuyou's space manipulations were more primitive -- but also more graceful -- than Yuki had expected. Haruhi and the others reacted instantly, leaping to their feet in alarm -- except for Mikuru, who squealed and dove behind Haruhi.
The energy abruptly dispersed, leaving Kyon in his combat dress, holding one of Kanae's hands, and one of Suou Kuyou's. "Safe," the other entity announced, completely disregarding the surrounding environment to stare fixedly into Kyon's eyes.
"Good!" Haruhi exclaimed, nodding, her attention fixed on Kuyou. "So, successful extraction! Brilliant work, Kanae-chan-- And Kyon, you've brought Kuyou in as an ally?"
Kuyou offered a single languorous blink. "Ally," she echoed quietly, slowly turning to face Haruhi, the faintest suggestions of curiosity on her face.
Yuki was not convinced that Haruhi's analysis was accurate.
"Of course!" Haruhi continued. "So -- we're all allies because we help one-another and work together. You want to join us, right?"
Kuyou's head cocked slightly to one side as she seemed to consider it. With strange deliberation, Kuyou plucked Ryouko's form from Kyon's pocket in both hands, holding up the wildly flailing -- but muted -- entity and contemplating her. "Ally," she repeated.
Haruhi tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Well ... in her case, she's slow to start up.... So, she's bound to Kyon to help him out, but--"
"I am an ally," Kuyou replied without hesitation, not letting Haruhi finish her statement.
The brigade chief was mildly taken aback. "You.... You want to be connected to Kyon like Ryouko is?"
Kuyou nodded, again without hesitation.
Haruhi put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows, studying the dark-haired girl with concern. "Why do you want that?"
"Sympathy," Kuyou said. After another blink, she added, "Resonance."
"So she can learn to communicate with Ryouko better," Kyon realized aloud.
Haruhi studied the dark-haired girl thoughtfully for a long minute before allowing a slow nod. "Well, okay, but in your case, if you change your mind, that's fine, too," she decided.
"What happened at the cafe, anyway?" Kyon asked, moving Kanae's wobbling form to a seat and gently setting her down. Mikuru broke from her uncertainty and moved to the slider's side, patting her wrist and checking her vitals. Yuki thought that was productive; the slider was unharmed, but would be reassured by the time-traveler.
"Men from Kyouko's organization abducted Sasaki," Mori offered with a frown. "Evidently they abandoned her, as well -- this seems like a last-ditch effort on their part; it's absolutely desperate."
"Wait-- They abducted--" He shook his head. "Where is she?"
"Hey, her allies just tried to trap you somewhere!" Haruhi protested. "And you're worried about her? One thing at a time-- Yuki-chan, if Kuyou wants to help us out, then I guess it's fine to bring her in like Ryouko -- maybe she'll be a good role-model for her, anyway."
Yuki nodded. "Program loaded," she announced, turning to Kyon. "Permission to proceed?"
"Okay -- Suou-san, if you want to join us, then I guess I don't have a problem with it, but before we have time to really chat, we have to rescue Sasaki," he explained.
"Okay," she repeated back to him.
Deciding that was confirmation enough, Yuki let Haruhi's change propagate, confining Kuyou's unfamiliar power and being into a knowable form. Something escaped her makeup -- a memetic transfer designed for interfaces such as Yuki, not Kuyou -- and Yuki accessed it curiously, finding it the most recognizable part of Kuyou. It was strangely intimate, with Kuyou submitting entirely to Yuki's manipulations, and Yuki -- for her part -- proceeding as cautiously as possible, not wanting in any way to damage the other entity.
Even doing as much as she did required releasing all of her own control over some aspects of Haruhi's power, relying instead on Haruhi's vague, inexplicable -- but evidently effective -- desire for it to work. Within Kuyou's being, only accessible with Haruhi's assistance, was a memetic imprint, impossibly hidden and preserved behind what should have been an irreconcilable data-transform. Almost as though, somewhere within Kuyou's physical being, there was an event horizon.
The metaphysical space within Kuyou's being stretched and warped time within her oddly, destroying anything Yuki recognized as data except for that single record -- a recording that Ryouko had made, intended for Kimidori. As she considered that, the seal on her own memory released, allowing her to understand that Ryouko's failure was pre-determined.
Therefore, the data had to be presented to Kuyou somehow. But in the strange landscape of Kuyou's makeup, where were the other entity's own memories? How did she record and preserve information?
Unable to determine that, she released full control over those aspects of the change, trusting in Kyon's decision to allow Haruhi's power to work.
As tense as things were at the moment considering their situation, they were going surprisingly well. No one had been hurt, and they might even have acquired a new ally. Tsuruya was hopeful for that, at least; she didn't like when her friends got upset about the seeming enormity of their problems. Considering how easily they brushed off the worst she had ever dealt with alone....
"Hang on a minute," Haruhi said, frowning. "Yuki-chan, is it done? I didn't see anything!"
"It was ... subtle," Yuki replied, her eyes fixed on Kuyou's figure.
"No chibi-mode?" Tsuruya wondered, hoping to break the tension slightly.
"Not currently enabled."
"Unfair!" Ryouko protested, while the brigade's vice commander adopted a deepening, silent scowl.
After everything that happened, Kyon looked more worried than irate, in Tsuruya's estimation. And it involved Sasaki, which was a sticking point for Haruhi, still...
Deciding to step in before things got out of hand, Tsuruya coughed quietly and placed one hand flat on the table before her. "Haru-nyan," she said, "we should prioritize -- but even then, there are enough of us, aren't there?"
Haruhi bit off whatever she was going to say to Yuki and turned to look at Tsuruya quizzically.
"Yuki-chan, is Suou-san safe with us?" the heiress asked.
The smaller figure broke from her study of Kuyou's impassive features, then nodded.
"Okay," Tsuruya continued, nodding, "Kyon-kun and Yuki-chan can rescue Sasaki -- the rest of us can interview Suou-san and find out more about her. And since we're sending out those two, we know they will come back safe and soon!"
"Alright," Haruhi allowed, with surprisingly little hesitation, adopting a slight frown. "Kyon-- Be careful, and come back as soon as you rescue her. We should probably pick up Kyouko, too."
"Yes," Kuyou agreed, blinking once.
Kyon gave a terse nod at that, handing Ryouko to Kuyou, who accepted the flailing, terrified chibi with unchanging blankness. Yuki took his free hand, and Kanae stirred in her seat a heartbeat too late; Yuki and Kyon were gone when she tried to protest, "Mm, Sempai, I can help...."
"More rest for you," Mikuru countered with stern warmth. "Kyon-kun and Yuki-chan will take care of it."
Haruhi crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, turning her attention to Kuyou. "So ... tell us about yourself, Suou -- why did you want to be ... er ... tied to Kyon like that?" she prompted.
"The _________ of his ambit is greater than its area," she answered. "He is like __. I am _________ to him."
Tsuruya rubbed at her ears, shivering at those strange gaps in her speech. Ryouko stopped flailing, her small form blinking. "Oh," she said quietly, giving the other being a surprisingly warm smile. "I have decoded one of those gaps!"
"Yeah?" Haruhi wondered, while Mikuru looked up, scanning across the assembly once Kanae finally settled back down.
"Um ... the meaning is a bit strange, because she's talking on a different scale, but she's saying she's pulled to Kyon--"
"Attracted?" Haruhi interjected.
Ryouko nodded at that, her terror vanishing. "Yeah! Somehow, she thinks Kyon's attractive!"
"I am attracted to him," Kuyou repeated, mirroring Ryouko's nod.
Pacing toward the dark-haired girl and examining her closely, Haruhi wondered, "What does that mean to you? You're here for Kyon, then?"
"I followed the ____ of his _________ and observed his attraction via effects on others," she clarified. "He has attracted you the same way."
"Those were 'echo' and 'influence'!" Ryouko cheered. "We're building a communication library! But ... why root it in something as basic as language?"
Haruhi's eyes widened at that. "Y...you don't care about ... anyone else? Just Kyon?"
Kuyou paused and considered Haruhi's question. "Sasaki is my friend," she offered after some thought. "Kyon is my friend. Kyon occults Sasaki; I occult Kyon."
"Why did you want to be linked to Kyon, though?" Tsuruya asked again. "Last time, there were gaps when you tried to explain that. Do you have the words now?"
Kuyou considered this, cocking her head slightly to one side. "Persistent ... observation," she mumbled, her eyes clouding. She blinked again, then several times in rapid succession, before her eyes drifted closed and she froze utterly, her hair still in a dark halo.
"Itsuki-kun has successfully retrieved Kyouko," Mori noted. "Arakawa has Kyon-kun and Nagato in pursuit of Sasaki."
"Well, that's good, but.... Tsu-chan, did you just break Suou-san?" Haruhi wondered.
"I don't get it!" Ryouko complained. "It's like she suddenly got overwhelmed as soon as she tried to access a memory!"
Haruhi frowned at that. "Okay -- let's get this figured out while Kyon's saving the day. Again."
Kyon realized he'd forgotten to close his eyes to brace for the disorientation of teleporting only after he landed in the rear seat of the car Arakawa was driving. Yuki was right next to him, eyes going forward, to the cityscape as it blurred past them on either side.
Come to think of it, though.... He really didn't feel disoriented from it anymore.
He shook his head to banish that thought, squinting as he stared forward, reflexively reaching for his seat belt before stopping. In this instance, he could rely on his other defenses; he might need to get out of the car at a moment's notice.
The white van was only a few car lengths ahead of them, both that driver and Arakawa going well above the speed limit through what Kyon realized was an industrial district -- though not one he recognized. Most of his attention was on the vehicle with Sasaki held inside it, however.
Kyon braced himself against the vehicle's mass with his gravity field, bleeding off his personnel momentum effortlessly when Arakawa suddenly braked. He guessed that Yuki did the same, though she didn't need the metal studs or any other visible means to do it. Ahead of them, the van had suddenly swerved to one side, driving through the just-opening double-doors to a steel-walled warehouse.
From the street where their car had stopped, they could see the van had halted too, near the center of the warehouse, beneath a conspicuous pool of light.
"I'll block the door with the car," Arakawa decided, swiftly gunning the car forward, skidding to a halt between the warehouse's large doors. Kyon and Yuki wasted no time, immediately leaping out. From where he and the girl crossed into the shadow of the warehouse's dark interior, Kyon stumbled to a stop, unable to see. There was an abrupt flash as the doors behind him slammed shut, pinning the car in place -- and Arakawa inside.
The further wall of the warehouse opened up, revealing that the back was a door also. Kyon bit back a scream of anger when four identical white vans sped out in a tight cluster -- revealed between himself and the vehicles were the forms of at least a dozen figures in familiar-looking suits.
Lights throughout the warehouse began to flicker on, slow halogen bulbs that revealed the arena bit-by-bit, showing that Kyon's initial guess had been low. There were better than thirty smirking Sumiyoshi-rengo crowded around the room, all of them armed with long knives, metal pipes, brass knuckles, or other melee weapons of choice. One of the nearer men actually had a sword, along with a pair further into the crowd.
"I don't have time for this!" he protested, eying the men unhappily. "Are you serious?"
Belatedly, he noticed clusters of cameras ringing the lighting rigs in the ceiling. Well ... that wasn't going to help him out.
Yuki took a defensive stance at his side, and Kyon reached for one his weapons, deciding to cut things short. The net launcher wasn't efficient enough for so many targets, but there was a sonic-based canon that should do the trick. He pulled it out and leveled it at the nearest group of three, a handful of paces away.
They tensed, but when he pulled the trigger ... nothing happened.
The man with a sword chuckled, stepping forward for an overhand chop while the boy stared at his sidearm blankly. How had that happened? Even when he thrust it back into his greatcoat, it remained stuck, inert in the form it had last been in, not collapsing back into a cylinder.
He slid backward reflexively, as Yuki stepped across him, one hand expertly slapping the blade to one side, sending it clattering to the floor -- along with a splash of crimson from her opened palm. She froze, turning to look at her injury in consternation.
At the same moment she found herself uncertain, Kyon was galvanized. His invulnerable goddess, injured by some petty boryokudan member?
Unacceptable.
He registered, dimly, that something was wrong. He knew without trying anything heavy that his gravity manipulation wouldn't work. His forcefield wouldn't be reliable.... Part of this trap had been to disable their unnatural advantages. And why wouldn't it? Their enemy had the ability to gather information on them, too....
Running away from the thug he did what he had to. "I wish I didn't have to this," he apologized, knowing he was leaving Nagato behind him as he moved.
The thug grunted something he couldn't make out as the edge of Kyon's foot found its way beneath the discarded blade, and effortlessly kicked the weapon up into his hands. Prepared, Kyon spun and lunged back to face his foe, ready to defend Nagato until reinforcements arrived.