Disclaimer: Haruhi Suzumiya does not belong to me. I'm just playing, and will put them back where I found them when I'm done.

Control

by Netherwood

Lying on the rooftop of his apartment complex, Kyon watched the world end. The blue-gray haze swept over the horizon first. Once, it was called Closed Space. It was hardly closed off anymore, and it happened so quickly that it wasn't worth calling it a separate space, either. It was just how the curtains were drawn shut at the end of the day.

Next to him, his sister bolted up and stared in amazement. "Ooh, it's so pretty! Kyon, what is it?" They'd mostly lived alone in apartments since they lost their parents. By chance, their current home was in a building very like the apartment building Nagato used to live in.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"It's not nothing, Kyon, the world doesn't turn blue! Tell me, what is it?"

Then the dome of the sky began to crack. The first time he saw Closed Space crack like the inside of the world egg, he thought it was the most amazing sight that could possibly exist. Had he really been that stupid once? Now, no Celestials came to lay devastation to the old world to make way for the new; she didn't need them anymore. The only thing that appeared were the crimson veins that shattered across the sky, twitching as they formed a visceral cage over the earth.

He sighed. Without turning around, he knew she was there. "What are you changing next?" After all this time, he couldn't muster any real emotion; his voice was flat, almost without inflection.

His sister twisted around, and a big smile lit up her face. "Haru-nee! Did you come to watch the sky break too? Isn't it pretty?"

Haruhi, standing behind him with fists on her hips and proudly watching the veined sky, ignored his little sister like she didn't matter or just wasn't there. Instead, she talked to Kyon when she was done admiring her handiwork. Unlike him, she had plenty of cheer boiling up. "Come on, do you really want me to spoil it? Just wait for the next go around. I've got good feelings about this one, I might pull it off this time!"

And then the world broke, and the pieces fell like so much bloodied glass to be swept out with the trash.

OoOoO

The power to struggle forward despite every failure, forging even a new world when the old one failed—Koizumi might have called it the right of a god. Koizumi would have called it a lot of things, but in the end all his half-serious philosophies broke under the strain.

He lasted more worlds than the rest of the Brigade, far more than Asahina. He was even an esper right up to the end—or occasionally a wizard, or a Shinto priest, and once a mad scientist—but he always knew of the masquerade, of the strangeness behind the stage they played on. He always knew what Haruhi was. He never remembered the old worlds, of course, no one did, but he still swallowed Kyon's story every time with the same unfazed, adhesive smile and string of ponderings as though they'd help. As things went on and on, Kyon sometimes caught a hint of desperation screaming and rattling the cage behind Koizumi's prison-like eyes, but the esper never lost his composure.

Kyon never bought that whole 'Haruhi is god' story anyway.

OoOoO

When the new world was dragged into life and Her Hand withdrew, Kyon found himself struggling up the damn hill on the way to yet another morning of school under the ceaseless, all-reaching celestial flame of the sun. He briefly toyed with the idea of asking her to get rid of the hill, especially since she seemed to have a penchant for hot weather lately, but tossed the notion aside. He didn't care for the cost.

A student walking a little faster brushed by him, and realizing it was Taniguchi, Kyon reflexively raised a hand and called out.

"Eh?" Taniguchi was startled like he hadn't noticed Kyon at first, but still hung back, hesitating, after he realized who it was. "Kyon? Ah, look man, I gotta hurry. I'll... I'll catch you in class?"

As Taniguchi fled ahead, Kyon thought about Taniguchi's eyes. There had been something like fear and panic in them. It was rare, but Kyon sometimes caught that look in people's eyes as they did this over and over. No one ever let on that they knew something was wrong. No one ever acted out of place, or like they expected something else. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe they didn't even consciously realize that something was wrong, or that they even felt that boiling paranoia. Or maybe Kyon was imagining those sudden, silent howls coming from souls jerked along in meat-puppet bodies on a stage that spanned the world.

Kyon looked around. Actually, maybe Taniguchi's reaction had nothing to do with whether anyone else did or didn't understand what was happening. There was more than one student giving him the same look Taniguchi had, like they'd walked in on a corpse. Boys who scowled carefully in the other direction, clumps of girls whispering. They all flinched and walked faster if they met his gaze, and no one came closer than a pistol's range.

"Heyas, Kyon!"

He blinked and looked around, then found the girl with the beaming fanged smile and long green hair vibrant enough to match her boisterous spirit. Tsuruya was standing just off the main road between two buildings, waving him over cheerfully.

Sure, why not?

He left the road and joined her in the alley, then followed her lead when she crouched behind some boxes to hide from view. "Tsuruya, good morning."

"Well, it's goods to see that Kyon is holding up!" She nodded with satisfaction as she clapped his shoulder. "I knew Kyon was made of stern stuffs, but anyone would have trouble keeping their spirits up with all this!"

The thought chased across his mind, but Kyon's hope didn't actually rise—whatever she was talking about, it was part of this new world. Of course she wasn't talking about Haruhi and Kyon's long journey. The first half dozen times someone pulled him aside and intimated that they knew of his troubles, he'd felt a brief, shining, desperate elation. Now, it barely called up a wistful sigh.

Was there any point in getting involved in whatever trouble they found themselves in this time?

"Thanks for that," he said anyway, trying to look grateful. "You've always been friendly to everyone, and it's nice to see you're sincere about that even when things go wrong."

Tsuruya grinned even wider and rubbed a hand behind her head like an embarrassed kid. "Ah, Kyon's praise makes me blush! Let me give you a good compliment in return, then! You've always been the nicest, steadiest person I know, and that I can say with all my heart!"

The ever-benevolent heiress was one of the people close enough that he saw her often enough in many worlds—and yet she had escaped the worst of what had destroyed the SOS Brigade. She hadn't really been close enough to be in danger, notwithstanding the kind words and warm smile she had for any of them. Plus, she had been plenty useful to the Brigade for as long as they'd survived. Maybe Tsuruya had enough favor and protection from the vagaries of fate? And, since this new world, whatever was going on, seemed to be pushing them together anyway...

Kyon cut off that line of thought. It would get Tsuruya worse than killed, and it would all be because Kyon lost his head for a few minutes wishing for her warm enthusiasm.

As penance, he made himself ask. "Say, do you remember Asahina?"

Tsuruya blinked, her grin a little too fixed to be truly ignorant. Or was he imagining things again? "Who?"

"A girl in your year. I think I saw her talking to you a few times? A bit on the short side, chestnut brown hair, cute soft face, and she was very, well, you know," he made cupping motions in front of his chest. "Really sweet too, a little clumsy and spacey?"

"Ooh, should I be megas jealous?" Tsuruya chortled as she swatted his arm. "You should knows better to go asking a friendly girl about another girl who's—well," and with a wink, Tsuruya made her own cupping motions, which did considerably more interesting things than when Kyon had demonstrated. "Can't say I know a girls like that, though. You said she's in my year? Asahina? What's her full names?"

"Never mind. She could have transferred out early." Kyon shrugged. "Just a thought, anyway."

Asahina had always been too much, too noticeable, too threatening, too there. Even when she had tried to keep her distance from Kyon, it was obvious that she wanted to rush to his side, so she'd been the first to go. She lost her status as a time traveler almost immediately. She was a damsel in distress a few times after that, needing to be rescued from a dragon in one world and a serial killer hiding in the school in another, but always in danger or just plain humiliated. Soon, the new worlds wouldn't even let her be in the Brigade at all. But he still saw her by chance in the halls, and one time she'd been standing by a window on the school's second floor, watching distantly as the others rush about the courtyard...

...and then she wasn't there at all in the next world, and Tsuruya never seemed to notice that her best friend simply vanished. The cheerful heiress herself was probably only spared so far because her attentions were thrown far and generously to everyone who crossed her sunny path. If Tsuruya had been so focused on the Brigade as Mikuru had been...

Tsuruya laughed, a touch nervously, breaking Kyon's thoughts. "I bet you can guess from how we're hiding in an alley, but I pulled Kyon aside for reasons other than saying good morning! You see, I believes you couldn't possibly do the things they say you did."

"That's good to know."

"W..well..." Tsuruya chuckled hesitantly. "I'd believe anyway because I understand Kyon's heart through and through, but actually I don't just believe in this case. I actually know for reals! I'm hesitants to admit it, but my family has quite good connections. We know quite a lot, and have a good hand in much of it."

"Yakuza?" he asked, looking sidelong her.

"Aha! Is it that obvious, or is Kyon just fast?" Tsuruya stuck her tongue out and knocked herself on the head before bursting into laughter even more boisterous than before, as though there couldn't be anything more hilarious in the world. "And I thoughts I was being sneaky this whole time! That'll show me!"

"Let's just say I've learned what to look for." The first time he saw the sprawling mansion of the Tsuruya estate and all its obscene wealth, he'd wondered as a joke what crimes the Tsuruya family must commit—and it turned out that in any world where Tsuruya had an unusual background, yakuza was the overwhelmingly popular explanation.

Tsuruya gasped as something occurred to her, and she thrust her hands out in a wait-just-a-minute gesture. "My family wasn't involved in your troubles, though, so don't think that! I didn't come here to taunt Kyon about the mess he's in, I'm here to help, honest!"

"It didn't occur to me." He could say that truthfully, he knew exactly the real cause of his trouble.

She peered into his face searchingly, then beamed at him. "Kyon really is a greats guy, aren't you? I was right to trust you with my secret, I think. I can't say much more right now, it's betters if you don't know too much. But I can help fix everythings like new, I promise! Daddy doesn't want me getting involved, so I can't really talk to you like this except when I slip my minders. I'll tell you more laters. For now, gimme your cell number?"

They traded numbers, and split up to go to school. When he reached the street again, causing a sudden wave as startled students saw him and moved away, he almost laughed at how easy it was to hold a long discussion about a topic he knew nothing about as long as the other person assumed he was following along. Far too much practice. He didn't play along because he wanted to hide that he was freshly arrived in this world only twenty minutes ago, or that such feats were possible. It was just that explaining, over and over, was more annoying than it was worth.

It felt odd to be almost enjoying a few minutes of one of these scenarios. It was Tsuruya's fault, naturally. With what he knew and what he'd done, Kyon could have taken Tsuruya's unrelenting cheer as just one more slap in the face, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to work up the rage. He wouldn't mind a calm afternoon of just talking to her with nothing else to worry about.

OoOoO

When he arrived to class a few minutes early and slid back the door, the students who bothered to look over immediately swung their heads back to their desks. Except, of course, for one.

"Hey Kyon, what's it feel like beating someone's head in with a bat?"

The girl who had called out sat with one leg jauntily crossed over the other, bouncing with excitement. Last row, last seat, waiting right behind him, day in and day out.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

That Haruhi shone with almost precisely the same face-splitting grin of radiant joy as Tsuruya, despite everything, made Kyon want to peel her face off and toss it away.

"Crunchy, yet satisfying," he said, tossing the line off with his eternal deadpan as he sat at his desk. "I'd recommend it, truly."

She let out a chuckle, then watched him intently for a few minutes. She wanted him to ask about the new world, of course, but he didn't see the point and didn't want to give her the satisfaction. They didn't break eye contact, though, even as class started. She just kept her eyes and her teeth facing him, and he sat half-turned toward her and watched her out the side of his eyes. He had time. It wasn't as if he needed to do anything. He didn't even have to worry about classwork. Even if he cared about keeping up appearances, they were never in one place long enough for it to matter.

"They all think you murdered someone." No one reacted to Haruhi talking over the lecture, of course. She didn't want to be interrupted.

"I'd gathered something of the sort."

"There's not enough evidence to prove anything, and hey, there probably never will be. Not even enough to make a convincing arrest! That's why you're here in class instead of jail, if you're wondering."

"I hadn't, thanks."

Haruhi's eyes narrowed on him incrementally, but she went on without a change in her voice. "There wasn't another good explanation, though, and there was enough to point fingers. So now the rumor flying all around school is that you're a murderer, and everyone believes it." She started with a chuckle, then a full-throated laugh burst out of Haruhi, crashing around the classroom. Still, no one reacted. "Aren't they idiots? Who'd believe that? Kyon, flipping out and killing someone? But mindless drones believe whatever they're told, don't they?"

She took a minute to get her mirth under control, then leaned in far too close to him and smacked a fist into her palm. "What we have to do is find a way to clear your name. It'll be dangerous, but we'll track down the real criminals and get proof of their misdeeds against you! It'll be a blast!"

"Why do we care about the opinions of mindless drones, again? That's unlike you, Haruhi."

"Never said I did, but who can resist the chance to go up against a shadowy organization of killers? It's not like we'll be going it alone, either. We have support from a trusted ally. She's as delicious as she is bouncy! She might even be up for a nice celebration when we win! Do you really think you can turn that down?"

Kyon felt his guts twist, hot and sick. "Tsuruya."

"Right! She's always been useful, hasn't she?"

Kyon finally turned away and spent most of the rest of class watching the passing clouds. To his surprise, she didn't try to get his attention again.

OoOoO

Nagato was the one who explained it while she was still able. Up to that point, he still hadn't been sure exactly what was happening, but he'd seen enough to know that digging too deep was dangerous. She'd shown up on his doorstep and convinced him to come back to her apartment, despite his initial protests. Her social algorithms being as clearly defined as they were, she offered him tea while they spoke of life, death, and divinity.

She set her drained cup down and looked at him across the table, her golden-brown eyes stoic. "On a previous occasion similar to this, I stated that you were a normal human being with no supernatural or abnormal secrets, traits, or abilities. After continuing observation, I have determined that that statement is both true and false."

He still held his own cup, letting the warmth of the tea seep through his hands but not drinking and not quite meeting her eyes. "True and false at the same time? I guess we should be glad you don't run on binary logic, then. You might have to dumb it down a little more for me, though."

"You continue to display no such elements. Regardless of how the world around you alters, you remain as you are."

"Are you saying she..."

"Possibly. There is a question in theology called the omnipotence paradox that is relevant. In this case, can she create something which is beyond her own ability to change? Regardless of the source, you remain eternally unchanged despite her best attempts. The data of the world is easily altered; yours, however, remains locked. You may be the only entity in creation with this trait. In its own way, such a trait is uniquely abnormal."

The seconds ticked away silently, she staring at him and he finally trembling almost uncontrollably. "How?" It came out as a gasp. "Why?"

She didn't reply for a long minute, in which she seemed to sink into a reverie. While thinking, she poured herself another cup of tea and wordlessly offered him a refill, which he refused. When she had drained half her cup again, she broke the silence. "Are you familiar with the literary texts collectively referred to as the Old Testament in Christianity or the Tanakh in Judaism?"

"N...not really, no."

"I see. In contrast with more benevolent portrayals in later texts, the deity of the older texts is often contradictory , disproportionately destructive, and seemingly whimsical. The deity commands followers not to kill, yet also commands them at various times to commit genocide against their neighbors. On yet other occasions, the deity only demands they kill the males, and allows them to keep the females as slaves for any purpose they desire. Followers are destroyed for infractions using inventive methods. Some are struck dead for stabilizing the deity's vessel of worship when it was about to fall. One is transmuted into salt for observing the destruction of a city she was ordered to not observe."

Kyon looked sick. "I... kind of see how it might apply. God can't seem to make up his mind, can he? They... they weren't actually writing about..."

Nagato shook her head minutely. "I do not believe the texts were actually written by observing the entity whose power now affects us. Nevertheless, it is relevant as a metaphor or a parallel circumstance. The deity portrayed was an all-powerful entity which, despite its power, constantly demanded for unknown reasons the devotion and obedience of a group of insignificant homo sapiens. The followers had no means or ability to challenge the deity's dominance, and could not provide anything an omnipotent being could not simply create. As portrayed in the text, I see no logical reason for the deity's obsession with homo sapiens."

"No reason at all?" Kyon asked.

"Not a reason that is logical." Yuki became very still and trailed off without finishing the thought, which seemed so unlike her that Kyon leaned forward trying to see if she was still breathing. Just when he was ready to slide around the table and get closer, her lips pulled apart once again. Her voice was hard and final.

"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."

They sat in silence a little longer while Nagato finished the rest of her cup of tea. Then she rose and, taking Kyon's hand, led him to her bedroom. What came next was partly from sympathy between two souls that had suffered alongside each other for too long. It was partly from a desire to spit in the face of god one last time. It was partly that they knew what cost Nagato would already pay for telling Kyon too much, for telling him how to fight the enemy.

The world ended that night, and the next was not forgiving. Nagato did not cry before she faded into oblivion, but Kyon did.

OoOoO

When he got back to the apartment, he didn't notice what was wrong at first. She was easily distracted, after all, and didn't always come straight home from school. He was having misgivings after an hour, and talked himself into doing some housework to distract himself. Then he noticed the only dirty laundry waiting to be washed was his. He ran to her room, just to make sure, and punched a dent in the wall when he saw that it still had her things thrown about the room, still had her bed and her toys on the floor and her clothes in the closet, but there was a thin layer of dust over it all.

He ran out the apartment, up the stairway, onto the rooftop, and screamed out Haruhi's name into the white noise of the city. The world rippled, and then she was standing there at the edge of the roof, arms crossed boldly and wearing a smile for him as though nothing was wrong.

"Where's my sister, Haruhi? Where's Nonoko?"

She arched an eyebrow and cocked her head to one side. "Who do you think they say you murdered?"

"Haruhi, where's my sister, damn it? Bring her back!"

"Stop freaking out, will you? She's okay. She just got nabbed by some thugs, that's all. You'll get her back when we solve the mystery and clear your name."

He took a step toward her, hands twitching, curling into fists, and he bared his teeth without thinking about it. "To hell with your games, Haruhi! My sister never did anything to you, just leave her out of this!"

Haruhi's mask broke then, and she fixed him with a glare of such rage and hatred and betrayal that his boiling blood surged with the desire to tear her face off, and he charged forward and threw a punch. The world rippled again, and then Haruhi just wasn't there anymore. Kyon's charge kept going until he hit the guardrail hard, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Looking around while he recovered, he found her standing calmly at the other end of the roof.

"Well, I guess I was right, anyway." Haruhi had pushed the anger off her face, and she was looking at him with disappointment more than anything else. "I guess I found someone else you care about too much. I don't even get why you keep fighting me."

"Go to hell," he spat, too angry to come up with anything clever.

"You never peeled your eyes off Mikuru, even when I just tried keeping her away. You never really liked Koizumi, but you still relied on him too much. I don't even get why, it's not like he knew anything I couldn't just tell you. Yuki..." Haruhi's face contorted into something monstrous, and for an instant he saw Sekhmet the lion goddess devouring humanity, saw Kali the eternal destroyer clad in a skirt of severed arms and a necklace of human heads, saw all the fury of the universe grinding apart species and planets and galaxies under the relentless heel of time.

"Yuki had to go. But your sister... I think she's really cute, it's not like I wanted to do this to her. I had fun with her! She even reminds me of how I was at her age." Haruhi sighed. Kyon thought, with some anger, that she hadn't mentioned his parents, who she had done away with because having responsible adults around got in the way of adventures. "We'd have fun if you'd just go along with my games. I'd give you anything you wanted. I'd even bring back Yuki and everyone if you really miss them. Why won't you let me make you happy?"

She didn't mean it, of course. Maybe she even believed she did. But he had long ago figured out that when she fixed the thunderbolts of her eyes on him and forced that lie through clenched teeth, Why won't you let me make you happy, what she really meant was, Why won't you give me what I want?

Why won't you worship me?

"Be happy, with what you've turned into? I couldn't possibly be happy about that."

Haruhi glared at him across the roof. "We're wasting time here. Nonoko doesn't have to be safe when we find her, you know. Maybe the thugs will have some fun with her before we rescue her. Maybe we'll just be too late, and your sister really will be gone then, and Tsuruya might get murdered by the same thugs while we're chasing them. Then I think we'll keep this world for a few years if that happens, just so you don't have to think about anyone but me for awhile."

Well. That was fine. If there really wasn't anything he could do against her... if she was just going to keep stripping away everyone he looked at, if the only thing she really cared about was getting exactly what she wanted...

Kyon's fists tightened on the railing. The apartment building was five stories tall, and the ground was a long ways away. Even if everything in your life is someone else's toy, there is one thing you still control.

He felt new energy shooting through his body as he made his decision; Haruhi took a step forward and raised a hand, seemingly unsure of herself as she watched him. He swung his legs over the railing and stood on the wrong side of the safeguard.

"Kyon, get back here, that, that isn't funny." She vanished again and appeared much closer, a few paces away. "You wouldn't do it anyway, that's not how you think, you just wait things out and see if they get better because you're so patient." She got a good look at his eyes, and her own widened in fear. "Kyon? Don't. Please don't."

"I'm done with you. And if you want to be the only thing I have, then I'm just done."

She snarled at him then, swinging from fear to anger. "I'll make you over again! I'll bring you back to life, over and over until you do what I say!"

"You can't, and you know it." He laughed, wild and angry. "You can make a doll that looks like me if you think he'll be enough, but hell if I'm going to let you play with me like this."

"Kyon..." she started again, but he pushed against the railing and let go. The world lurched around him and he felt a scream trying to force itself out his throat as he realized he didn't want to die, not like this, not helpless, not spitting in the face of a girl he used to love. The last thing he saw was the blue sky and Haruhi's face and grasping hand over the side of the roof, and the last thing he heard was her scream:

"Kyon! Don't leave me alone!"

OoOoO

A/N: ...So. Um. I'm usually quite in favor of Haruhi figuring out what's going on. It's always struck me as kind of unsavory that canon lets Kyon, the boy who secretly yearns for exciting situations, gets to know everything and revel in it, while Haruhi, the girl who openly yearns for the same, is slowly convinced to quiet down and be content with her lot. For this story, though, I made myself ask, "What's the worst that could happen?" and let Haruhi figure out her powers while she was still the self-centered borderline sociopath from the very start of the series who uses people as she sees fit without ever realizing that she ought to care about their pain.

There's a reason why a god can become such a terrible thing.