The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  “You fool. Don’t you understand that the fact I came here makes no significant difference? Why do you think you’re even here?”

  “How the hell would I know?” I said without thinking. I had an appointment with a brigade member who did that kind of thinking for me. If he wanted to ponder Zen riddles, he should’ve been bothering our lieutenant chief, I told him.

  “I have no such plans. I’ll pass,” said the stranger, backing up as though blown by the wind. “Today was simply for introductions. Just a bit of fun. I have my own instructions to follow, you see. Though I don’t know if that was part of your little time traveler’s plans. And beyond that—heh—it’s classified.”

  He turned on his heel and strolled off. The way he’d just showed up and said his piece without bothering to introduce himself made me want to teach him some manners, and for a moment I thought about following after him, but in the end I just watched him go.

  That was because Asahina was standing as still as a bronze statue, still clinging to my arm. Rooted to the ground, the terrified girl watched the disagreeable bastard recede, and it wasn’t until he finally turned a corner that she fully relaxed.

  “Whew…” said the petite upperclassman, the strength finally going out of her clenched hands as she slumped and leaned against me. I felt the warmth Haruhi was so fond of grabbing onto against my hand, but this was no time to be enjoying such things.

  “You didn’t even recognize him a little bit, Asahina?”

  Asahina somehow managed to straighten, and she spoke in a very small voice. “… I don’t know for sure, but… he’s probably from the future…”

  That much I figured. His wording matched up with Asahina’s. My limited deductive capacity could get that far. But what had he come for? Showing up ahead of time and finding the object before we could get to it couldn’t be a good thing. He definitely hadn’t done it just to watch Asahina and me crawl around in the dirt for half an hour.

  Another time traveler. And he was Asahina’s enemy.

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold winter wind. So, just like there was a rival faction of cosmic entities, there were also people from the future with different priorities. Come to think of it, even Koizumi had alluded to organizations that were rivals to his Agency. I didn’t know what they’d been doing all this time, but it seemed like they were starting to show themselves.

  “Looks like there are all kinds of people in the future.”

  “Yes. Er…” Asahina began to respond to my plaintive-sounding statement, but after opening and closing her mouth she just looked away. “It’s classified information—I tried to say it, but I can’t.”

  It was enough. I told her that I wouldn’t worry about it, so she shouldn’t worry either.

  “But this is definitely important. I knew we’d meet someone like him eventually. But… this is such an unstable time, so…”

  “Unstable?”

  “Yes. Because the original ‘me’ is with Suzumiya right now.”

  That might actually be why this other guy was here.

  I put the letter back in the outside pocket of my coat. Assuming that Asahina’s and my encounter with that guy was a predetermined event, it would’ve been impossible, given that Asahina the Younger was now with Koizumi and Haruhi. The only thing that made it possible was the fact that (Michiru) Asahina had come back from eight days in the future to work with me.

  I suddenly became aware of the memory device, still clasped in my sweaty hand. It was the object of today’s mission, but now I was more worried about another matter entirely. I put it in the same pocket with the letter, feeling a fresh surge of anger at the recently departed stranger. I wouldn’t forgive anyone who gave Asahina a hard time, be they from the past, present, or future. Neither would Tsuruya. Come to think of it, neither would Ha-ruhi, and I doubted Nagato or Koizumi would let it slide either.

  “I get the feeling we’re gonna see him again.”

  “Probably.” Asahina nodded surprisingly readily. Her fearful expression was shifting into confusion, as though she was thinking about something. Happily, she didn’t seem to have noticed she was still clinging to my arm as she said, “He also said something about a predetermined event. He’s probably not much different from me. And—”

  She cut herself off. More classified information? I asked.

  “No,” said Asahina, finally detaching herself from me. “He didn’t seem like that bad of a person to me. What did you think, Kyon?”

  What did I think? I thought that anybody who would talk to Asahina and me like that was the worst. There were only a few people who could get away with that, and a mouthy jerk I’d just met for the first time definitely wasn’t one of them.

  Of course, I wouldn’t have been exactly pleased if he’d used my nickname either.

  We’d wasted a lot of time mucking around in the flower box, then being sidetracked by the mysterious stranger. We had to meet back up with Haruhi in front of the station at four o’clock, and it was already past three. There was enough time to go to the library and drag Nagato away from the bookshelves, then go to the station, but I couldn’t very well leave Asahina on her own. Even if I called her a cab, there was no guarantee the driver wouldn’t be one of our enemies, and the cold smile of the stranger only worsened my worry.

  It would destroy my wallet, but there was no other way—I’d ride in the taxi with Asahina to Tsuruya’s place, then continue on to the library.

  I hailed a passing cab and got in with Asahina, closing the door behind me.

  “Do you remember Tsuruya’s address?”

  “Oh—um, I don’t really know,” she said. “What ward was it again…?”

  “You mean the big Tsuruya mansion? If that’s what you’re talking about, I know the place,” the middle-aged cab driver interjected affably.

  The talkative driver wanted to know what school year we were in, how high school was going, and was furthermore happy to tell us about his own son, who was in elementary school, and by the time he’d told us he was thinking of sending said son to a nice private middle school, we had arrived at the front gate of the Tsuruya estate.

  Getting out of the car, Asahina thanked both the driver and me profusely before disappearing behind the gate. I could breathe a sigh of relief. No new time traveler would be able to mess with her in there. It was good to have classmates you could count on.

  “The library, and step on it,” I said, leaning back in the seat and feeling some of the tension finally drain out of me.

  When I got back to the library, I saw Nagato there, still standing and reading. I was impressed at her ability to hold a big hardback book for so long.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Nagato closed the book—it looked like a dictionary—with a thwap, then replaced it on the shelf in front of her. She kept pace with me as we strode toward the exit.

  “Nagato, do you know what this is?”

  Outside the exit, Nagato slowly turned her head to face me, still walking as she looked at the object I held up.

  “It was like this—” I started to tell her the story as we headed north to the station. I didn’t have to keep any secrets from Nagato. I told her everything, from the letters in my shoe locker to the events that had just transpired.

  “… I see.” Nagato nodded expressionlessly as she answered in her usual flat voice. “There is damaged data recorded on that device,” she said, staring at the small chip as though she were performing a CT scan with her eyes. “Over half the data has been destroyed. In its current form, it cannot be interpreted.”

  What kind of data? I asked.

  “Insufficient information. The degree of damage is too high, the omitted portions too numerous.”

  So it had something on it even Nagato couldn’t make sense of. That had to mean that no normal human would be able to interpret it either, but that I was going to have to send it to someone who could.

  “If a r
estoration process were applied, it is possible that entirely different data would result.” Nagato looked away from the chip, as though having read the entirety of its contents. “A conjecture is possible.”

  The hood of the duffle coat shook slightly with each step she took.

  “There are two hundred and eighteen sectors of the damaged data where a variant input method was used, and if read on a different device than was intended for that storage medium, it would be possible to extract the fundamental principles underlying a new technology.”

  Before I could even ask what that meant, Nagato faced me and continued.

  “The time travel technology utilized by Mikuru Asahina.”

  However—Nagato explained to me.

  Even if someone were able to obtain that data, human science and technology were at present insufficient to interpret it, and it would not lead to the immediate development of a time machine. But it was still crucial data. Without it, a time machine would never be built, and humanity would never unlock the secrets of time travel. Asahina’s method of time travel depended on thousands of accidental discoveries and developments. And at the root of them all was—

  “—This? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Her flat expression seemed disinterested, and Nagato didn’t even slacken her pace. I couldn’t help but slow down, though. The fate of the future lay in the palm of my hand, and having been entrusted with it I felt an indescribable pressure.

  “It could also be a dummy,” said Nagato, unwittingly throwing cold water on my emotions. “It is unlikely that is the only copy of the data. It would be natural to have several backups.”

  That made sense. That’s how it always went—when something really valuable was being transported, there would be an original and a dummy, and each would take separate routes. A vision of Asahina the Elder appeared in my mind; she winked and put her finger to her lips, smiling softly. But even she had a weak subject—and it was standing right in front of me.

  “Oh, that’s right, Nagato—” I said to the back of the rapidly advancing girl. “Sorry about today.”

  Nagato’s progress slowed, and she looked over her shoulder with a blankly questioning expression.

  “No, I mean, yesterday I didn’t tell you I was going to bring Asahina along today, right? I just asked you for a favor with no explanation, which was kinda… yeah.”

  “…”

  Nagato continued walking while looking at me. After ten seconds under her searching gaze, I finally cracked.

  “Asahina told me I should apologize. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  “… I see.”

  She finally looked ahead. Nagato kept walking, speaking again after about five seconds.

  “I see.”

  In front of the station, Haruhi and Asahina leaned on each other like puppies exhausted after a day of playing, while beside them Koizumi stood, a beatific smile on his face.

  After meeting up, we found ourselves piling back into the café in order to report our findings. Of course, nothing I could report to Haruhi had happened since the last time we’d done this, and I wasn’t going to tell her about the weird guy who’d shown up either. Fortunately, when I reported “We found nothing mysterious or mysterious-seeming,” Haruhi’s mood didn’t take an instant turn for the worse, unlike last year.

  “Oh, well—you win some, you lose some.”

  Had we ever won some?

  Haruhi was in surprisingly good spirits as she sipped her cappuccino. “Let’s meet up again tomorrow. Those mysterious phenomena won’t expect us to be on the lookout two days running! We gotta preserve the element of surprise, then grab ’em by the tail. They’ll probably pop out from the strangest places. We might just run right into ’em!”

  Yeah, like a voice suddenly calling out to you from behind. Just remembering it made me angry. Just the thought of him smirking as he watched Asahina and me toil away was enough to make my café au lait taste like black coffee. He’d better be ready, the next time I saw him. I’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and make him kneel in front of Haruhi or Nagato—that’d show him.

  My irritation must’ve shown on my face, because Haruhi peered at me curiously. But in the end she let it pass with no comment, then smiled an inexplicable smile.

  “Oh, well. We’ve got tomorrow. A new day brings new possibilities! It wouldn’t be any fun to just repeat the same day over and over, would it? My guess is that Sunday is the best target, anyway. It just feels the laziest and most laid-back, right? Like it doesn’t get along with Monday, that’s what I think.”

  As I listened to Haruhi anthropomorphize the days of the week, I realized that Monday was a vacation day too, and just as I was suddenly afraid I’d wind up looking for mysterious phenomena three days running, I remembered that (Michiru) Asahina hadn’t said anything about that—and anyway, the sight of Asahina the Younger’s bashful laugher at Haruhi’s affable chatter did my heart good.

  “So that’ll wrap things up for today,” said Haruhi, dismissing us.

  Just as I’d been told, it was exactly five o’clock.

  Man, oh man. Today had certainly given me a lot to think about.

  Riding my bike into the wind, I reflected on the day’s events—Koizumi’s words before lunch, the two Asahinas, the nameless jerk and his boasting, Nagato’s unwavering face, and Haruhi’s unexpected good spirits. I didn’t even want to think about anything else happening, but things weren’t done yet. I wasn’t so forgetful that I’d just trudge home empty-handed, I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen the object in my pocket—and there was tomorrow to think about.

  So it was that I stopped by the convenience store and bought a stamp and envelope, then headed over to the home center.

  Once there, I wandered over to the pet corner. I found myself rather taken with the dogs and cats there, which, unlike Shamisen, were purebred. Pushing the temptation aside, I found the aquarium tank, inside of which was a clump of pond turtles and green turtles; they seemed to be getting along well. I wished I’d had Asahina with me. I would’ve loved to see her face as she exclaimed at the American shorthairs and shelties in the display. I’d seen my sister do it one too many times.

  I looked into the turtle tank.

  “All right, then, which one should I get?”

  I began my evaluation. The small turtles were mostly unmoving and sat very still upon the rocks, like they were in a diorama. Which was sort of charming, in and of itself. I could understand why one would be a turtle fancier. It seemed a little rude to keep them cooped up like this, but it was winter, so I guessed that couldn’t be helped. On the other hand, I was going to toss one of them into a freezing-cold river tomorrow, which wasn’t much of an improvement. Which one would a turtle enjoy more? Which had more appeal—a cozy life in an aquarium, or returning to the harsh freedom of nature?

  Perhaps sensing my intent gaze, one of the pond turtles craned his neck around to look up at me. Losing his balance, he fell off the rock and plopped into the water, and after drifting about in the bubbles that frothed out of the tank’s filter, finally managed to climb back onto the backs of his comrades—perhaps the water was cold. Yup, I’d found my turtle.

  I flagged down a shop attendant to pull out the little guy for me, indicating to the young man—maybe a college student working a part-time job—which turtle I wished to purchase. He happily took out a wide variety of turtle-care-type items. For my part I would’ve been fine with just a paper bag to put the turtle in, but it would’ve been awkward to explain that no, I didn’t plan to keep it as a pet, I was just going to throw it in the river—he’d want to know why, and the fact was, I wanted to know why myself.

  In the end, as I was trying to mumble that I didn’t have cash on me to cover all this, he’d already covered the bottom of a small plastic tank with gravel and filled it with water, then carefully picked up my turtle and placed it inside, then handed it over to me along with a box of feed. “This comes free with the turtle,�
�� he said with a big smile as he led me to the register.

  It seemed like this shop attendant really liked turtles.

  “If you’ve ever got any questions about turtles, just ask,” he said, ringing it up at the register and paying for the case and feed out of his own wallet. I wanted to apologize, since this turtle was going straight into the river tomorrow.

  Feeling a bit guilty, I carried the now-turtle-filled case out of the home center, putting it and the feed in my bicycle’s basket and setting off once again.

  The sky was now well and truly dark, but I still couldn’t head home. There was one more thing I had to take care of—one more thing to do.

  “Heya! Kyon! I figured you’d be back! Evenin’!”

  My destination was none other than the Tsuruya mansion, where a certain cheerful girl dressed in a perfect traditional Japanese-style outfit let me and my bike through the gate, beneath the starry sky.

  “Huh? What’s that? A souvenir?” said Tsuruya, peering into the bike basket. “Aw, a pond turtle. Thanks, but our garden’s pond is already lousy with the things. They just multiplied like crazy. If you put a little guy like that back there, they’d just beat up on him.”

  Sorry, Tsuruya—this wasn’t a present for her. I’d actually gotten it for Asahina, sort of, I told her.

  “Oh, too bad! Also, Kyon, I’m sorry I couldn’t take Michiru to the library today. I just couldn’t skip out on my thing.”

  I leaned my bike up in the corner of the absurdly large garden, then walked alongside Tsuruya, carrying the turtle case with me.

  “Did you have plans?” I asked.

  “It was a memorial service. The whole family gets together to remember our ancestors. It was my dad’s grandfather this time—he actually had a really interesting life. With so many crazy episodes, his memorial was really busy!” Tsuruya chattered like she was a hare racing a tortoise and had just decided to take the race seriously. “But are you really that worried about Michiru? Do you want to sleep in the same room with her? I’d sleep next to her too, but if you don’t feel like it, that’s fine.”