The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  The next day, at the station that would any day now turn into a famous sightseeing destination, I arrived twenty minutes early only to discover the rest of the brigade waiting for me.

  However, only Koizumi and Nagato looked anything like their usual selves; Asahina stood there, unease on her face, while Haruhi looked like someone who’d put all her money into the lottery and was waiting for the numbers to be announced.

  “You’re late.” She glared at me with a complicated expression.

  That day, for once, I wasn’t made to treat the rest of the brigade at the café as a tardiness punishment. Haruhi just grabbed my arm and started walking toward the ticket machines.

  “I heard more about it from Koizumi,” she said as she bought tickets for all of us. “That Nagato’s going to try some kind of folk remedy? For something called ‘suncat’?”

  Suncat? What was that supposed to be? It sounded like a new kind of fairy from Polynesia or something.

  “It’s the illness we believe Rousseau has contracted.” Having gotten his ticket, Koizumi reached out to the automatic turnstile. He quickly continued, perhaps to stop me from contradicting the story he’d come up with. “When an otherwise active dog suddenly loses all of his energy and acts like a cat sleeping in a sunbeam, it indicates a case of this disease. It’s an extremely rare affliction and is not in any veterinary manuals. There’s a possibility it’s a sort of neurosis,” he said, winking at me, “or so Nagato has explained it to me. Evidently she learned about it in some old book. Isn’t that right?”

  Nagato, the only one of us still wearing her school uniform, nodded plainly enough for everyone to see. The nod was so awkward that it was painfully obvious they’d discussed this ahead of time.

  She looked at the paper supermarket bag that Koizumi held, then regarded the pet carrier I was holding.

  “Meow,” said Shamisen, as if to greet Nagato, scratching at the holes in the box he was in.

  Haruhi thwacked the cat carrier. “It’s so weird to need a cat to treat a disease. Yuki, are you sure this is okay? Can we trust that book?”

  It was a lot closer to an exorcism than a treatment, but we couldn’t very well tell that to Haruhi. I was glad for Nagato’s policy of silence.

  She nodded, then, turning her head to regard me, held out both hands. Just when I was wondering what she wanted, since all I had was this cat in a plastic box, she spoke.

  “The cat,” said Nagato, her voice flat. “Give it to me.”

  Thus I became empty-handed, and while the carrier box containing the cat was on the train, it rested on Nagato’s lap. Maybe because we were on a train, I couldn’t tell if the silent girl was trying to give me some kind of a sign, but Shamisen behaved himself.

  Haruhi and Asahina sat on either side of Nagato, and in contrast to their interest in the cat-filled box, I was much more interested in the contents of Koizumi’s bag.

  “Don’t worry; I’ve prepared suitable tools.”

  The two of us boys were leaning against the door of the train car, so there was no concern that Haruhi would overhear our conversation. Koizumi moved the bag slightly.

  “It took a bit of effort getting it ready in a single night, but I managed. The rest is up to Nagato.”

  I had no doubts about Nagato’s abilities. She would save Rousseau. What was giving me a headache was thinking about cleaning up afterward.

  “That’ll be my job. This is just my intuition, but I don’t think this will be too troublesome. You’ll see if you watch Suzumiya. Her highest priority right now is to cure Rousseau. So long as we can accomplish that, we’ll have fulfilled our duties.”

  I hoped he was right.

  I took my eyes off the unconcernedly smiling Koizumi and grabbed a handhold as the train began to decelerate. There were only two more stations to Sakanaka’s neighborhood. There wasn’t much time left to think.

  This made it the third day we’d visited Sakanaka’s house. I would never have imagined we’d be coming here three times in a single week.

  Sakanaka met us at the door, looking much the same as she had the previous day, though her eyes were colored by what might have been a sliver of hope.

  “Suzumiya…” She seemed on the verge of tears and at a loss for words; Haruhi simply nodded and looked back. She was searching for the best and brightest member of the SOS Brigade—the slender, school-uniformed Nagato.

  “Leave it to us, Sakanaka. You might not think it, but Yuki’s super dependable, and she can do practically anything. J.J. will be better before you know it.”

  We were led shortly into the Sakanakas’ living room, where there was Mrs. Sakanaka along with another woman. Something about her said “ladies’ college student” to me, and no sooner did I look at her face than I understood she was Higuchi, owner of the other afflicted dog. Which meant that the exhausted miniature dachshund she held in her arms had to be Mike.

  Rousseau was much the same as he had been the previous day, lying on the couch, motionless. His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything, and Mike was exactly of a kind.

  This was it. I exchanged looks with Nagato and Koizumi.

  I began taking brief instructions from Nagato, acting as her assistant, just as the three of us had decided at our last meeting. Koizumi had brought the appropriate tools. I didn’t know where he’d gotten them, but I had to admit, the guy was pretty useful in times like this. It was a lot easier than trying to get our hands on a silicon-based life-form.

  First we closed the curtains to block off the sunlight. None of the lights were on, of course, so once the room was dim, I produced a fat, colorful candle from the bag Koizumi had brought, placing it on an antique candle stand and lighting it with a match. I then put some incense in a small bowl and lit it as well. Once I’d confirmed that the fragrant and strangely colored smoke was wafting around the room, I gave Nagato the sign.

  Shamisen hated to be held that way, but somehow the usually grouchy cat offered no resistance as Nagato picked him up.

  I coughed. “Can I ask you to put your dog next to Rousseau?”

  Suspicion at what seemed like our preparations for a magic spell colored the face of the young, refined Higuchi, but she did as I asked. There were now two dogs on the sofa, each of them listless and inattentive, as though lacking in spirit.

  Holding the cat, Nagato knelt down in front of the sofa.

  That was the last step. I hit the switch on a digital recorder, and a haunting refrain of theremin and sitar filled the room with its eerie melody. To be honest, I thought this was overdoing it, but Koizumi’s specialty was seeing his gimmicks through to the end.

  The candlelight flickered uncertainly, the sweet smell of incense filled the air, and exotic music played as Nagato began what could only be thought of as a strange ritual.

  “…”

  In the dim room, her pale face seemed freeze-dried in its lack of affect. Her hands, just as pale as her face, moved. She placed one hand on Rousseau’s head, petting him, then put that same hand to Shamisen’s head. Despite being in an unfamiliar house and directly facing two strange dogs, Shamisen sat impressively still and let her do it.

  Nagato brought Shamisen face-to-face with Rousseau, their noses almost touching. Rousseau’s black eyes moved sluggishly to meet the eyes of the calico cat opposite him. Nagato moved her hands back and forth as if transferring something from Rousseau to Shamisen, then performed the same process with Mike. Nagato’s lips were moving slightly, forming words I couldn’t quite make out, but only Koizumi and I seemed to notice this.

  Finally, Nagato touched Shamisen’s small forehead to each dog’s nose, then stood. Saying nothing, she put Shamisen back in the carrier, then brought it over to me and looked up.

  “It is finished.”

  Naturally, everyone was dumbfounded. I certainly was, standing there holding the carrier, but Haruhi and Asahina, and especially Sakanaka and Higuchi, were all the more stunned.

  Haruhi’s mouth hung open. “W
hat do you mean, ‘It is finished’? That’s all? I mean… what was that?”

  “…”

  Nagato merely tilted her head and directed her gaze to the two dogs, as if to say, that’s what you should be looking at.

  And there—

  There were two dogs, unsteady but clear-eyed as they adorably looked about for their owners.

  “Rousseau!”

  “Mike!”

  Sakanaka and Higuchi ran over, arms outstretched. The dogs whined weakly but wagged their tails as they licked their owners’ cheeks.

  A few minutes after the moving scene, which had caused Asahina to start crying out of sheer sympathy, the dingy spell-casting space had been returned to its natural living-room state. Rousseau and Mike were in the kitchen getting a meal from Mrs. Sakanaka, while the five of us, along with Sakanaka and Higuchi, sat on a sofa that encircled an expensive-looking table.

  “What Nagato performed was a form of animal therapy.” Koizumi’s explanation was almost painful to listen to, but between his cheerful smile and pleasant tone, everybody seemed to be buying it. “The candle and the incense both had aromatics in them, which dogs are even more sensitive to than humans, thanks to their excellent noses. We chose the music for its relaxing qualities.”

  There had to be a limit to such nonsense, but I supposed all was well, since Rousseau and Mike had actually recovered. Sakanaka’s and Higuchi’s happiness was total, and Mrs. Sakanaka was very grateful that both her dog’s and her daughter’s health had been restored, and she baked a mountain of the choux à la crème Haruhi loved so much.

  Sakanaka was even happier than her mother. “It’s just incredible, Nagato! You knew stuff even the veterinarian didn’t know!”

  “That’s our Yuki. She’s the SOS Brigade’s number one all-rounder,” bragged Haruhi. Nagato was busy devouring choux à la crème. “She’s read a million books, knows all kinds of things, plays the guitar, and she’s a great cook too. She’s even national level at sports!”

  “It’s a good thing that folk cure was in an old book Nagato read,” said Sakanaka.

  Koizumi elegantly sipped his tea, then followed that up. “There are treatments in Chinese medicine whose effectiveness science can’t explain. It seems one can’t dismiss folk remedies out of hand,” he said. I couldn’t help but think he was laying it on pretty thick.

  Having served their purpose, the incense and candles were back in the bag. Shamisen, who’d likewise been used as a tool for this treatment, was in his carrier. I wanted to let him out to wander around a bit, but if he decided to sharpen his claws on any of the house’s fine furniture, a simple scolding wasn’t going to fix things, so I left him where he was. Ever since Nagato had stepped away, he’d been rattling around in the carrier meowing, but if I left him alone, I figured he’d give up and go to sleep.

  The truth was that Shamisen was the one who deserved a medal; the other “tools” had been mere window dressing, though only Nagato, Koizumi, and I knew that little fact.

  All Nagato had needed to do was freeze the data life-form element. That was all.

  She could have frozen it within the two dogs that had contracted the “disease.” It was the simplest and most direct method, but it could also cause problems. Higuchi’s little Mike or Sakanaka’s beloved Rousseau might reach the end of his natural life, but after he passed away, the frozen data life-form would remain. We couldn’t ignore the possibility that it would then escape its frozen state and go on to cause more trouble. So we decided it would be better to place it in a form we could continuously monitor. Any organic life-form would suffice as a host—even Haruhi or me—but Nagato identified Shamisen as the one least likely to experience problems. This was a male calico that once in a while gained the ability to speak human language. I didn’t think storing a frozen cosmic life-form or two inside him was going to cause him any difficulty, and if there were any problems, I would notice immediately… so that was the plan.

  As an alternative to the sigh I wanted to heave, I popped a choux à la crème into my mouth.

  While Sakanaka had certainly suffered misfortune, the source of that misfortune had now been transferred into my cat. I wondered if anyone would bother feeling sorry for me.

  Nagato’s apartment did allow pets, so I could leave Shamisen there with her, but convincing my sister to agree to that would take no small amount of effort, and I’d grown fond of the cat myself. You go right ahead, Shamisen. Live long enough to turn into a ghost cat yourself.

  By the time we were leaving Sakanaka’s house, Rousseau and Mike had gotten so much of their energy back it was unbelievable. This delighted both Asahina and Haruhi, and they each hugged both of the dogs in turn, smiling hugely.

  Before we left, Mrs. Sakanaka made us take all sorts of goodies—including all the leftover choux à la crème. The bag thrust into Nagato’s hands was especially large, and it was a good feeling to see the person who deserved the most thanks be treated so well. In the course of chatting, Higuchi (who did attend a ladies’ college) also expressed a desire to thank us materially, but Haruhi shut her down.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine! We took this case on for free from the beginning. Just getting to hold Mikey here is plenty. My SOS Brigade isn’t a for-profit establishment anyway, and we don’t need money or goods to get along. The feeling we get seeing J.J. and Mikey healthy is more than enough compensation. Right, Yuki?”

  Nagato said nothing, but nodded minutely.

  Always maintaining his cool, Koizumi spoke to Sakanaka. “If any other dogs fall ill in a similar manner to Rousseau, please notify us. It is unlikely, but just in case.”

  “I will. I’ll ask around next time I take Rousseau on a walk.” Sakanaka nodded firmly.

  We parted ways with our classmate, saying we’d meet again at school. Haruhi started walking, her spirits high. Behind her, something occurred to me.

  If Haruhi and Sakanaka happened to be in the same class next year, that would be an extremely good thing.

  Both on the way to the station and on the train itself, Haruhi seemed to have forgotten a certain something as she happily talked about the dogs with Asahina. It would make things a lot easier for me if she didn’t remember, so I was careful not to say anything foolish.

  We ended up gradually going our separate ways before arriving at the station where we usually met up. Haruhi, Nagato, and Asahina all got off one stop before there, since it was closer to their homes. And though it was barely afternoon, I was already stuffed with crème, and I also had the cat with me, so I took a pass on going into a restaurant. So the SOS Brigade’s day came to an end.

  Koizumi got off at the same station as me, walking through the same turnstile.

  He matched my stride, walking alongside me as I headed home. So he’d lived in this area all along, eh?

  Now that the boisterous, outgoing ladies of the SOS Brigade had gone their separate ways, I walked alone with the esper, and the quiet was unnerving.

  “Good work today,” said Koizumi.

  I couldn’t help hearing that as a mere pleasantry, I said.

  “Well, the source of the problem was extremely… problematic. We even had to enlist Shamisen’s help. Still, Nagato certainly has been useful, hasn’t she? As I recall, there was a similar problem last year. Kimidori came to us for help, and we had to save the computer club president from a data life-form. Doesn’t it seem that the clients who’ve approached us are all connected to Nagato?”

  “What’re you trying to say?”

  “Nagato’s membership in the SOS Brigade has become a total necessity, though that’s merely my opinion. I’d venture that you’re the one who has more things he wants to say.”

  I wasn’t really doing that much thinking. My only thought was to wonder why all these things—the cave cricket, the guy we’d just dealt with—kept being attracted to Earth, like a magnet attracting iron. What explained that? Come to think of it, Nagato was the same way. But Nagato was only here to watch Haruhi—

&n
bsp; I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Haruhi.

  Was that the answer? Haruhi had created the data explosion that caused the Data Overmind to send Nagato here. But that had been an active, deliberate response. But the thing that had happened with the computer club president’s room and this weird virus thing falling to Earth in a silicon lump—surely their aim wasn’t Haruhi as well. The former had come to Earth millions of years ago, for one thing.

  If Haruhi were unconsciously reaching back in time and manipulating things, then that meant things had well and truly gotten out of hand. But if Asahina… if time travelers had come to this time period, then that meant—

  I was trying to think about it seriously when Koizumi butted in, his timing so perfect that he must’ve either heard me muttering to myself or wanted to deliberately interrupt my train of thought.

  “Do you think it’s a coincidence?” he said, repeating the unpleasant question like a waiter reading a customer’s order back to him.

  I felt like I knew what he was going to say. “Just spit it out. I’ve got no intention of playing mind games with you.”

  “Of all the places it could have fallen, this cosmic life-form landed here in our town and just happened to attach itself to a dog owned by a student of North High, Sakanaka, who just happened to come to the SOS Brigade for help, and we… that is to say, Nagato just happened to realize the truth and take action. If this is all the product of a series of coincidences, then the probability of it happening just so is astronomically tiny.”

  It was in my nature to want to disagree with him. It wasn’t that I was on Haruhi’s side.

  “It was astronomical, all right! We had to intervene with two different alien-things. If it wasn’t a coincidence, then what was it? Are you saying that Nagato set them up, just like you orchestrated those mysteries?”

  “Surely not. If it were scripted, then it would either be the Data Overmind or some other alien of which we are yet unaware. What’s certain is that this did not happen because Haruhi wished it so.”