Volume 1 - The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

by Tanigawa Nagaru

  “……Doesn’t seem to work.”

  Haruhi held the phone to her ear, but could hear nothing. She tried to dial some numbers, but nothing came of it.

  We left the staff room, turning on all the lamps along the way, and went up the stairs, since Haruhi had suggested we return to our classroom. As the Fifth Class room for first years was located at the top floor, maybe we could figure out something by looking down from above.

  Haruhi kept holding onto my jacket as we walked along the corridor. Don’t count on me; I don’t have any supernatural powers at all. If you’re that scared, then grab onto my arm! It looks more natural that way!

  “Idiot!”

  Haruhi scowled at me, but her fingers never let go of my jacket.

  There was no change in the Fifth Class room; it was just as we’d left it after school.

  “……Kyon, look……”

  Haruhi went silent after walking towards the windows. I walked to her side and looked down at the situation.

  All around was a deep gray world. Looking down from the fourth floor at the top of the hill, I could even see the horizon beyond the shore. It was all darkness within the panorama, without even a single light on. It was like the end of the world.

  “What is this place……”

  It wasn’t the whole population that disappeared, but rather, we who had disappeared. It seemed that we had stumbled onto this Sealed Reality by accident.

  “This feels strange.”

  Haruhi touched her shoulder and murmured.

  As we didn’t know where else to go, we returned to the club room where we had just spent the afternoon before. As I’d already stolen the keys from the staff room, we were able to unlock the door and enter.

  Both of us breathed a sigh of relief at returning to a familiar, well-lit room.

  We turned on the radio, but we couldn’t even hear any static. The club room was so quiet that only the sound of me pouring tea could be heard. I’m not that interested in changing tea leaves, so I brewed the tea using thoroughly overused and tasteless tea leaves. Haruhi stood beside me gazing vividly at the gray world outside.

  “You want some tea?”

  “No.”

  I took my teacup, pulled out a chair, and sat down. I took a sip. Sigh, the tea brewed by Asahina-san is so much better than this.

  “Just what is going on here!? I don’t get it! What is this place? Why am I here?”

  Haruhi stood by the window and faced outside; her silhouette looked very frail.

  “And why am I with you, of all people?”

  “How the hell should I know!?”

  Haruhi just flicked her hair and scowled at my response.

  “I’m going outside to have a look.” She said and proceeded to leave the room. Just as I was about to stand up as well……

  “You stay here, I’ll be right back.”

  She left the room right away after saying that. That is so like Haruhi to do that! While hearing Haruhi’s energetic footsteps disappearing and sipping my tasteless warm tea, that thing appeared.

  It was a small glowing red sphere. At first it was the size of a table tennis ball, then slowly the sphere grew larger, shining like a firefly before finally taking on a humanoid shape.

  “Koizumi, is that you?”

  Before me was a glowing humanoid, but I could not see Koizumi’s appearance clearly, including his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  “Hi there.” A relaxed voice came from within the glowing object.

  “Took you long enough! I thought you would appear in your human form……”

  “Things are getting a bit complicated, so it’s going to take some time to explain. I’ll be honest; this is an abnormal event!” The red light flickered a bit. “If it were a normal Sealed Reality, I could have penetrated easily, but not this time. I had to appear in this incomplete form, and as I needed some help from my companions before I could finally enter here, I can’t even remain in this state for too long. Our powers are disappearing slowly, even as we speak.”

  “Just what’s going on? Is it just me and Haruhi here?”

  “Yes,” Koizumi answered.

  “This means what we had feared is finally happening. Suzumiya-san has grown tired of this reality, and she has decided to create a new one.”

  “……”

  “Our superiors are now in total panic. No one knows what the world will become when its god has disappeared. Though it’s possible the world will survive as long as Suzumiya-san decides to have mercy upon it, it is also possible that it’ll vanish in an instant.”

  “What are you trying to say……?”

  “To put it simply,” the red light now flickered like a flame, “You and Suzumiya-san have now disappeared from our world. This world is not a Sealed Reality but rather a brand new reality created by Suzumiya-san. The Sealed Realities we’ve seen before were probably just drills before she decided to re-create the world for real.”

  Such an interesting joke, but I don’t know how to laugh now. Ha ha ha.

  “I’m not joking. This world is probably closest to the world which Suzumiya-san desires. We’re still not sure what kind of world she desires, but we should have an answer to that soon.”

  “Let’s leave that aside, the real problem is why am I here?”

  “Do you really not know? You are the person chosen by Suzumiya-san. You are the only person in our world that Suzumiya-san wants to be with. I thought you’d have discovered that by now.” The light around Koizumi now glimmered like a torch running out of batteries, its brightness clearly diminishing. “I’m close to my limit now. At this rate, I’ll never be able to see you again; on the other hand though, I’m kind of relieved since I no longer have to go hunting for those Avatars anymore.”

  “Must I live alone with Haruhi in such a gray world?”

  “In this world, you’re like Adam and Eve. Just work hard on re-populating the world, and it’ll be fine.”

  “……I’m so gonna beat the crap out of you.”

  “Just kidding! Right now this sealed state is probably only temporary, but very soon it’ll become similar to the world you know. Yet this world will be completely different from the world we’re from. As of right now, this world could be considered as the real world, while the original reality ought to be considered a Sealed Reality. As for what differences there are between these two worlds, unfortunately we do not know. If I’m fortunate enough to be reborn in the new reality, I’m counting on you to show me around.”

  At this moment, Koizumi the glowing humanoid object began to slowly disintegrate and then, like a star running out of fuel, now shrank to its original table tennis ball size.

  “Is it impossible for us to return to the original world?”

  “As long as Suzumiya-san wishes for it, it might still be possible. I only knew you for a short while; it’s a pity really, but I did enjoy my time with the SOS Brigade……Ah, yes, I nearly forgot, I have to relay both Asahina Mikuru and Nagato Yuki’s messages to you.”

  Before Koizumi disappeared completely, he left this message.

  “Asahina Mikuru asked me to apologize in her stead: she said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.’ Also, Nagato Yuki tells you to ‘Remember to turn on the computer.’”

  After the message, he vanished like a candle flame blown out by the wind.

  I don’t know why Asahina-san had to apologize to me. Had Asahina-san done something wrong to me? But I decided not to think about that now; rather, I followed Nagato’s request and switched on the computer. After the hard disk makes a beep sound, the OS trademark should start appearing on the screen……That’s strange, why is nothing being shown? The OS screen which was supposed to appear after a few seconds didn’t appear; the screen was pitch black with only a white typing cursor flashing in the upper left corner of the screen. Then, the cursor started moving silently, and a line of cold words appeared.

  YUKI.N > Can you read this?

  I was stunned for a moment, and then I
pulled the keyboard closer and started typing.

  ‘Yes.’

  YUKI.N > Right now I have not completely lost contact with the world you are in. But that is only a matter of time, since the disconnection should occur very soon. If that is true, this will be our final conversation.

  ‘What should I do?’

  YUKI.N > I do not know either. The abnormal data spurt has disappeared completely over here. The Integrated Data Sentient Entity is very disappointed with this, because they will lose the possibility to evolve.

  ‘What do you mean by the possibility to evolve? Just how is Haruhi evolving?’

  YUKI.N > Being highly sentient means being able to process data quickly and accurately. Sentient organic lifeforms are limited by the excessive inaccurate and mixed-up data streams caused by their physical bodies, and are unable to process data quickly and accurately. So after evolving to a certain stage, organic lifeforms will cease to evolve.

  ‘Is it possible to evolve even without a physical body?’

  YUKI.N > The Integrated Data Sentient Entity is also created from data. They too had believed that their ability to process data would increase infinitely until the universe overheated itself. But they were wrong. As with the universe having an edge, their evolution also has a limit, at least for sentient entities relying on data to survive.

  ‘What about Suzumiya?’

  YUKI.N > Suzumiya Haruhi possesses the ability to create massive amounts of data out of nothing. That is the ability that the Integrated Data Sentient Entity doesn’t have. She can release data that could never be processed by a human, a mere organic lifeform, in its lifetime. The Integrated Data Sentient Entity believes if this data-creating ability is analyzed, then they will be able to find clues to how to auto-evolve.

  The cursor flashed momentarily. Perhaps Nagato was hesitating on what words to use. The next second, the words flowed like water.

  YUKI.N > I’m betting everything on you.

  ‘Betting on me for what?’

  YUKI.N > I hope that you can both return to this world. Suzumiya Haruhi is an important observation target, an important treasure that might only appear once in this universe. Besides that, I myself also wish for you to return.

  The color of the words began to fade as the electricity supply got weaker. The cursor continued to type out words.

  YUKI.N > Let us go to the library again next time.

  The words grew darker; even trying to adjust the screen brightness didn’t help. Finally, Nagato typed the following two words.

  YUKI.N > sleeping beauty

  Brrr. The sound of the hard disk spinning had me jumping from my seat. The light on the CPU flickered, and the familiar OS trademark screen appeared. The sound of the computer fan spinning was all that could be heard in this world.

  “What should I do? Koizumi! Nagato!”

  I sighed deeply and turned my head despondently towards the window.

  A blue light shone from outside the window.

  A glowing giant now stood in the school courtyard. Because it was so close, it looked like a huge blue wall.

  Haruhi rushed into the room.

  “Kyon! Something’s appeared!”

  Haruhi saw that she was about to bump into me, who was standing by the window, and quickly stopped and stood beside me.

  “What is that? It’s huge! Is it a monster? It doesn’t seem like an illusion.”

  Haruhi sounded very excited. Her depressed anxiety from a while ago had disappeared. Right now, her eyes glimmered with enthusiasm. No fear could be found in them.

  “You think that’s an alien? Or it could be a superweapon created by the ancients, waking up from its long slumber? Is that thing the reason we can’t escape from school?”

  The blue wall moved. The image of the giant smashing the buildings with ease flashed through my mind. I hurriedly grabbed Haruhi’s hand and bolted out of the club room.

  “Wait! Wait up, what’re you doing!?”

  As we rushed to the corridor, nearly falling down, a loud tremor vibrated through the air; I quickly pushed Haruhi down onto the floor and shielded her with my body. The clubs complex shook violently. The sound and vibration of a hard, heavy object stomping on the ground was transmitted to my ears. From this I knew the giant’s target was not the clubs complex but rather the school complex opposite.

  I grabbed Haruhi, who was so shocked that her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, and started running. Amazingly, Haruhi obediently followed me and ran.

  My palms were getting sweaty. So were Haruhi’s.

  The old clubs complex was devoid of dust. With all my strength, I ran with Haruhi in tow towards the staircase. The sound of the giant causing more destruction could be heard.

  I ran down the stairs while feeling Haruhi’s body heat being transmitted between our palms. After crossing the courtyard, we headed past the slope and towards the trackfield. At this moment I took a quick glance at Haruhi. I might have been mistaken, but she seemed quite happy. It was like seeing a child waking up on Christmas morning and finding out the presents she had wanted all along were now by her bedside.

  After running quite a distance from the school buildings, we turned and looked upwards, and discovered how huge the giant was. The giant inside the Sealed Reality Koizumi showed me was just as huge as this, almost as tall as a building.

  The giant waved its hand, and the school building collapsed. As the four story complex was already ripped open from its previous strike, it now fell easily. The debris fell and scattered in all directions along with the deafening noise it created.

  We ran frantically to the center of the two hundred meter trackfield before stopping. An unbelievable blue giant has now appeared in the dark monotonous school.

  If you want to take pictures, you should be taking these, and not pictures of the president of the Computer Study Group groping Asahina-san’s breasts, and definitely not pictures of Asahina-san wearing all sorts of costumes. The website ought to have pictures like what we’re seeing now!

  As I was thinking about this, Haruhi quickly said in my ear,

  “Do you think he’ll attack us? I don’t think he’s evil at all, what do you think?”

  “I dunno.”

  As I answered Haruhi, I was thinking at the same time about what Koizumi told me when he brought me into that Sealed Reality. If we let these “Avatars” continue their rampage, then after the destruction, the Sealed Reality will replace the real world, meaning this gray world will replace the world we came from, and then……

  What will become of our world?

  According to what Koizumi just told me, Haruhi seems to be creating a brand new world. Will the Asahina and Nagato I know be in this new world? Or will it be a surreal world where these “Avatars” walk around freely, and aliens, time travelers, and espers become commonplace?

  If the world really becomes like that, what role will I be playing?

  Argh, forget it, it’s useless trying to think anymore, because I just don’t get it. I don’t get what Haruhi’s thinking, and I don’t possess any telepathic power that allows me to read what others think.

  At this instant, I heard Haruhi speaking to me,

  “What exactly is going on here? Whether it’s this world or that giant, it’s all very strange!”

  Those things were all created by you, missy! I should be the one asking, why’d you drag me into all of this!? What Adam and Eve? That is just stupid! I won’t believe in such a crappy story! Never!

  “Don’t you want to return to the original world?”

  I asked calmly.

  “What did you say?”

  Haruhi turned towards me. Her face was smoothly white even in this gray world, and her glimmering eyes were now shrouded in darkness.

  “We can’t just stay here forever! There’s not a single shop, so there’s nowhere to eat when we get hungry. Besides, the school’s surrounded by an invisible wall: there’s no way out of here. At this rate we’ll starve to death.”


  “Hmm, it is all strange, but I don’t care. Things will eventually get sorted out. For some reason, I just feel very happy.”

  “Then what about the SOS Brigade? You created that club! You’re just gonna leave it?”

  “I really don’t give a damn anymore, because I’m already experiencing something exciting now; there’s no need for me to go out and search for mysterious events.”

  “But, I want to return to the original world.”

  The giant momentarily stopped its demolition of the school.

  “Before we ended up in this strange situation, I didn’t realize how much I liked my life the way it was. There I have the idiot Taniguchi, Kunikida, Koizumi, Nagato, and Asahina-san, and even the long-vanished Asakura.”

  “……What are you talking about?”

  “I really want to see those friends again. I have many things I want to tell them.”

  Haruhi lowered her head, and then continued after a while,

  “We’ll see them; this world won’t be forever covered in darkness. Once morning comes, the sun will come up. I’m sure of that.”

  “It’s not like that. This world is not what you think it is. I really want to see those friends in the original world.”

  “I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

  Haruhi scowled at me, like a kid who’s had her treasured present snatched away, revealing her anger and sadness.

  “Aren’t you sick and tired of that boring world as well? That world is so normal that there’s nothing special at all. Don’t you want to experience something interesting as well?”

  “I used to think like that.”

  The giant started moving. He kicked off the remaining parts of the school complex and headed for the courtyard. On the way, he swiped at the school corridor with his arm, then gave the clubs complex a huge kick. The school is slowly being flattened, including our club room.

  I looked over Haruhi’s shoulder and was astonished to find other glowing blue walls around. One, two, three……when I got to five, I decided to give up counting.

  Without the red glowing spheres in the way, the glowing blue giants now began their destruction of this gray world without delay. I don’t get what’s so interesting about all this destruction. Every time they moved their arms and legs, everything that they touched disappeared instantly.