“Sorry, turtle.”
The pond turtle lifted his head up. He didn’t try to escape when I brought my hand near, and I was able to easily retrieve him. For the turtle’s part, he probably wanted to ask me why the hell I threw him in the river, if I was just going to go in and fetch him back. Fortunately I had no facility in turtle-ese. Holding him in one hand, I climbed back up onto the bank. By the time I put the turtle back in his case, the chill had crept from my feet all the way up to my neck. Ugh, I was going to have stomach trouble later, I could tell.
I sat down and lifted my feet into the air to shake off the excess water.
“All right, kid, the turtle’s all yours.”
“Can I really have it?” the boy asked hesitantly. He’d seen everything I’d done. “I mean, didn’t you have a reason for throwing this turtle into the river?”
I was no better equipped than the turtle himself to satisfy his childish curiosity—after all, even I didn’t understand the purpose of what I was doing.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I don’t think the turtle really wanted to get tossed into a freezing river in the middle of winter. If you’ll take care of him, I think he’d like that a lot better.”
I wondered about Asahina. She’d said the directions in the letter absolutely had to be followed, but nothing I’d done went against them. I was a little worried about it, but then I saw Asahina gently handing the box of food to the boy.
“Take this too. It’s turtle food.” Then, sounding big-sisterish: “Make sure you take good care of him. Promise?”
“I promise.”
He was a little bit of a brat, but he didn’t seem like a bad kid. He hugged the turtle case and feed box tightly. “I’ll always take good care of him,” he said sincerely—more sincerely than he needed to show, honestly.
“Oh, hey, kid, promise me one more thing.” I had to make sure of one thing. I’d been careless last time, and it had almost been a disaster. The memory still echoed in my mind. “There’s a Haruhi Suzumiya who lives close to you, right?”
“Yes. Haruhi’s always taking care of me; she’s like my big sister.”
The words “big sister” sounded very strange in the context of Haruhi.
“You’ve gotta keep this a secret from Haruhi, got that? You can’t tell her that you saw me or Asahina… I mean, the bunny lady, and you can’t tell her we gave you the turtle. Can you promise me that?”
“I promise.” The boy nodded, his face serious. Well, that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about anymore.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to take him home?” Asahina piped up. “Your parents won’t tell you not to take things from strangers?”
“It’ll be okay. I’ll just tell them something else.” The boy straightened. “I’ll tell them that some people were doing experiments on the turtle, and they didn’t need him anymore so they were gonna throw him away, but I happened to pass by and felt sorry for him, so they let me have him. That’s what I’ll say. My folks’ll definitely let me keep him.”
The kid had his business together. My little sister could have stood to learn a thing or two from him. They were the same age, but there was a huge difference—I guessed it came down to environment.
“I have to get to cram school now, so I’ll be going.”
The boy bowed dutifully. Asahina laid the palm of her hand on his head.
“Don’t forget the promise you made before. Be careful of cars. Make sure you don’t get in any accidents—and make sure to study hard. If you do, I’m sure you’ll grow up to be an important person. One whom everyone will remember for a very long time.”
Asahina extended her little finger, at which the boy showed a bashfulness appropriate to his age. He hesitantly hooked his little finger around hers, thus completing the pinky promise. Seeing the two of them with their linked pinkies like that was ridiculously adorable.
The boy ticklishly pulled his pinky away, then, holding the turtle case as though it were the most precious treasure, walked off, occasionally looking over his shoulder and dipping his head in a bow. Asahina waved to him until he had vanished from sight, and I’d completely dried my feet and gotten my shoes back on before she finally dropped her hand.
“Whew…” She sighed. Apparently for her—or for her future—that boy was an important figure. It was like if I’d traveled back in time and met a towering historical figure from the Edo period. That much I knew without having to ask. And that whoever he was, it would be classified information.
“Whew.” I let a sigh escape myself, the sigh of having accomplished my mission. This was the last thing I had to do with Asahina. The empty can prank, the gourd-shaped stone, the mysterious data storage device, and the turtle.
The problem was I didn’t really know what to do next, and it hadn’t been written on letter #6. I could rest easy so long as Asahina stayed at Tsuruya’s apartment and didn’t go wandering around. If she just did that for two more days, she’d be able to catch up to her own original timeline. Then in exchange, I would have to instruct the current Asahina to travel back in time, but that would happen the day after tomorrow. For now, I felt like a load had been taken off my back.
“Asahina, I know you just got here, but let’s head back to Tsuruya’s place. We’ll catch a cab, and I’ll escort you back. After that, I’ve gotta get back to the library—Nagato’s waiting for me.”
“Okay…”
Asahina started walking a bit absentmindedly. I led us down to the road that ran alongside the row of cherry trees. As we stood there on the road’s shoulder waiting for a taxi, Asahina said little, and she seemed rather depressed.
As I waited for a cab to pass by, I took a look around, wondering if the stranger from yesterday was going to show up again. He was obviously malicious, but that was the problem—he was too over-the-top; he needed to improve his game. To be completely honest, I wasn’t the least bit scared of him. If someone like Koizumi had approached us yesterday instead, that would’ve been much more frightening—it was a mistake in either direction or casting.
Aha! I found myself impressed with my own reliable disposition. And it was true, wasn’t it? Throughout the past year I’d been involved in unthinkable, astounding events, and every time I learned something new. I’m sure I’d been shaken before. But now things were different. I wasn’t at Nagato’s level yet, but I’d had enough time to develop an unshakable core. I’d no longer worry about my own place in the world.
No taxi had come yet; indeed, there were few cars of any kind on the road. I was happy to stand there and loiter for a while beside Asahina, but having sent Nagato off to the library alone, I needed to get to her as soon as I could.
Maybe it was my fault for letting my mind wander so idly.
The next moment, I witnessed something unbelievable.
I hadn’t checked my watch. There hadn’t been an opportunity. I didn’t know the exact time, but it was definitely before eleven o’clock.
The incident played out like this:
As Asahina and I stood there on the left side of the road, dazedly watching for a taxi, a minivan approached us slowly. This wasn’t a highway, so the vehicle’s slow speed itself didn’t strike me as strange, and I paid it no mind.
But soon the van decelerated even more, and although there was no traffic signal in sight, it came to a complete stop—directly in front of us.
I’m not sure if I even had time to think, “What?”
Because it was barely a split second later that the sliding door of the minivan suddenly opened, and arms reached out from within the car and grabbed Asahina’s body, pulling her into the vehicle.
“Ah—?!”
By the time I’d realized that the cry had come from Asahina, the moss-green minivan had accelerated away, its exhaust blasting into me as though mocking me, sliding door still open, and disappeared into the distance.
“Wha—”
It took a couple of seconds before I recovered from my stupor. The va
n was already gone.
Wait. Wait just a second.
What the hell was this? Asahina had disappeared right before my eyes. She’d been pulled into the van, and the van was already out of sight, and here I was, standing alone at the edge of the road. What was going on?
“A kidnapping…”
And right before my eyes. I had been standing right next to her. She had been close enough that I could’ve reached out my hand or simply grabbed onto her. She had been next to me just a few seconds ago. And now she was gone. How could something so ridiculous actually happen?
“God dammit! What the hell!”
I hadn’t been so freaked out since last December, when I’d realized that Haruhi wasn’t in my class anymore, and sitting behind me instead of her was Asakura.
“Crap!”
Had it been that bastard from yesterday? Was this his doing? If it was, I’d underestimated him. Had his appearance and attitude been a setup to get me to let my guard down? If it had all been a ruse to distract me—
“Asahina!” A loud noise assaulted my eardrums. It wasn’t the sound of the wind through the cherry blossoms. It was the sound of the blood rushing through my head.
I whipped my cell phone out. I had to get somebody, anybody, to help me. If they’d help me get Asahina back, I didn’t care who they were—the police, the fire department, the self-defense forces, or the chamber of commerce. My fingers moved automatically, and the phone was ringing before I even knew who I’d dialed. They picked up immediately.
“What’s up, Kyon?”
It was Haruhi’s voice. In the moment I’d been so flustered that I’d called Haruhi. By this time, I was far past rationality.
“Haruhi, we’re in trouble! Asahina’s been kidnapped!” I shouted.
“Huh? What’re you talking about?”
Haruhi’s voice was entirely calm. My stomach churned and I yelled into the phone again.
“I told you, Asahina’s been kidnapped! We’ve got to help her—”
“Listen, Kyon,” Haruhi began, almost kindly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but if you’re going to start making prank calls, you’re going to have to do better than that. I mean, really. Are you kidding me? Mikuru’s been here with me the whole time. If you’d said it was Yuki, that would’ve made more sense.”
“No, it’s not Nagato—it’s Asahina, she’s—” I started, but then I realized it was futile. That’s right—Asahina was with Haruhi. That Asahina was the original one, not the one who’d appeared in the broom closet, who’d now been taken away in a car—
“That’s one point off for you, Kyon, which is less than you deserve for such a lame prank. And by the way, jokes are supposed to be funny. Bye, stupid Kyon!”
“Wait—!”
She hung up.
My hand shook as it held my cell phone. A situation where every second counts was no time to be calling Haruhi. I was such an idiot. If I had an urgent message to deliver, I should’ve called—
My phone started to ring.
I hit the talk button without bothering to check who it was.
“Hello?”
It was Koizumi’s voice. Before I could say anything, he started talking.
“Don’t worry. I got away from Haruhi and the others before I called. I told them I was going to the bathroom.”
Who cared about that? That didn’t matter, what was important was—
“Koizumi! It’s Asahina, she’s—”
“I understand the situation. Leave it to me. They’ll be with you shortly.”
“Who’ll be with me?!”
Almost giddy, I looked up to see a car stopping right in front of me. It was a black taxi. I couldn’t tell what cab company it was from, but it seemed familiar. I’d ridden in a similar cab once—when I was taken to see the Celestials.
The back door of the car opened. “Please get in. Hurry.”
The passenger sitting in the back seat beckoned me into the cab. I leaped in. There was a familiar passenger in the backseat of this familiar car. The door closed behind me before I had time to take in the situation and sudden g-forces pressed me into the seat’s back.
“We’ll catch them soon,” said a crisp, clear voice beside me—a voice I’d heard before. I’d never forget her voice, not after the many times she’d bailed us out in the past year.
“Mori… Sono Mori?!”
“My apologies for being so long out of contact.”
It had only been a month—that wasn’t “long out of contact.” And anyway, what was Mori doing here? And not wearing her maid outfit, but instead in a totally ordinary set of office clothes?
Mori gave her usual calm smile. “Didn’t Koizumi explain? I am also a member of the Agency. The maid disguise is only for when I’m working with you and your friends.”
My eyes went to the driver, at which Mori spoke as though to put me at ease.
“Not just me—him, as well.”
The driver brought his left hand up to adjust the rearview mirror, through which his eyes met mine.
“Arakawa…”
“Indeed,” said the middle-aged butler who excelled at cooking and—apparently—high-speed cab driving. “To kidnap such a lovely young lady—it’s a disgrace. We won’t let them get away.”
He stomped down on the accelerator, pushing me still harder into the seat. Riding in a car traveling at such a tremendous speed was terrifying, but it was also helping to thaw my shock-frozen brain.
Mori and Arakawa. I knew the two of them were Koizumi’s cohorts, and that the maid and butler roles were just part-time jobs for them. But I’d never expected to meet them like this, their car arriving immediately after Asahina had been kidnapped, as though they had expected it—Oh. Now I understood.
“You knew this was going to happen,” I managed to say. “You and Koizumi knew that Asahina was going to be kidnapped. That’s why you were standing by so close.”
“No,” said Mori, smiling like a female version of Koizumi. “It wasn’t you that we’d marked. It was them. When we saw their car approach you, we were unsure what they would do. Their actions surprised us as much as they did you.”
“What do you mean by ‘them’?”
“Koizumi didn’t explain that either? Asahina’s kidnappers are from an organization that opposes the Agency.”
It didn’t really matter who they were. I wouldn’t let them get away with this, whether they were time travelers or espers.
“Why did they take her, of all people…?”
“They acted rashly. No doubt they want to secure a privileged position in the future while they still can.”
Privileged? I asked.
“Yes. I expect they plan to use her to bargain with the future. However, they’ve made a mistake. They should have kidnapped the Mikuru Asahina who is now with Koizumi.” Mori explained the absurdity like it was nothing special. “It was a sloppy plan. They must be desperate. We need to know what has made them need to move so quickly.”
That weirdo from before appeared suddenly too. Another time traveler. Was this because of his appearance?
Mori seemed to agree, as though having read my mind. “They seem to have joined forces in earnest. We cannot allow this.”
“So is the Agency…” I wanted to say “my,” but somehow restrained myself. “… Is it our ally?”
“Our goal is to maintain the status quo. Is that not enough?”
It was precisely enough. But what were the bastards who had kidnapped Asahina thinking? I asked. And what were they? If they weren’t our allies, were they enemies? What kind of people were they?
“They consist of an organization that works against the Agency, a group of time travelers who oppose Mikuru Asahina, and a cosmic entity other than the one that created Yuki Nagato,” said Mori plainly. “We knew they would interfere soon, having heard Koizumi’s report regarding the snow mountain late last year. It was conceivable that they would join forces—rather, it was inevitable. There is significant pote
ntial payoff in gambling on Ha-ruhi Suzumiya. They might lose everything, but they stand to gain much.”
Bouncing and swaying, the black cab flew through a railroad crossing without stopping, then threaded through an S-curve, barely so much as slowing down, tires squealing.
“As does Koizumi, and you and your friends.”
I was starting to feel carsick. “So you knew about the other Asahina? You knew that she’d come back from one week in the future, and that she was holed up at Tsuruya’s place?”
“It is likely that without her, the original Mikuru Asahina would have been kidnapped. Before Haruhi Suzumiya’s very eyes.”
That was the worst possible scenario. There was no telling what Haruhi would do.
“Which means…”
It meant that the Asahina who’d come from the future had been kidnapped instead of the current Asahina. In other words, her future self had saved her past self. Was that why (Michiru) Asahina had to come? I could have carried out all of the instructions in Asahina the Elder’s letters on my own. So what had been the meaning of the things I’d done with Asahina? The other group of time travelers. The turtle and the boy. And the kidnapping. Only Asahina the Elder knew everything.
A strange emotion settled over me.
“Don’t lose them, Arakawa,” said Mori.
“Understood.”
Their exchange brought my attention front and center. The moss-green car was in view. Both vehicles were still traveling at high speed. Given the way we were going, it wouldn’t have been surprising if we’d gotten into three or four accidents by now, but Arakawa’s driving technique was as good as any rally racer’s. He was no ordinary butler.
The kidnappers’ car seemed to be heading for the mountains. If we kept going, we’d soon reach the forest park where we’d shot our movie, then keep heading north. Past that there was little but mountain roads, and few people or buildings. Damn, what were they planning to do to Asahina there? I wouldn’t let them get away with it.
I glared at the rear end of the van ahead of us—the moss-green minivan. It looked just like the one from before—the vehicle that had nearly run over the boy in glasses. There was no mistaking it; whoever was in that van, they weren’t our allies.
The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 21