The combat knife was held in a reverse grip, its tip pointed directly at my throat.
“Either way, it doesn’t much matter to me,” she said with a pleasant laugh, which made the hair on the back of my head stand up. A sweet, narcotic scent reached me as it wafted faintly through the air.
“You’re…” I finally forced the words out. “Asakura.”
“I certainly am. Who else would I be?”
From behind me echoed the unmistakable voice of my former Class 5 classmate, Ryoko Asakura.
“Nagato is resting at the moment, isn’t she? Hence my appearance. Does that bother you for some reason?”
I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t help feeling that if I turned and witnessed Ryoko Asakura’s form behind me, something terrible would happen. As Nagato’s former backup and member of the Data Overmind’s radical faction, she’d tried to kill me twice, and the second time I’d very nearly died. Both times it had been Nagato who’d saved me, but Nagato was not here. Instead, Kuyoh was here. Ridiculous. The tiger or the wolf—it was hard to imagine either of them was on my side. What kind of absurd dilemma was this?
“We detected an emergency. That’s why I’ve appeared. Is it really so mysterious?” she said sweetly. “I mean, I am Nagato’s backup, after all. She can’t act, so I’m up next. That’s how things work, you know.”
Nagato couldn’t act—.
This was an extraordinary situation. So much so that the once-deleted Ryoko Asakura had been revived. So much so that I had no choice but to seek aid from a killer.
“How rude. I’m not a killer, you know. I mean, look—I haven’t killed anyone at all yet, have I?”
Well, then, maybe she could point that knife somewhere else. I couldn’t even swallow.
“Now that I can’t do. So long as she’s over there, I must carry out my duties.” Her index finger uncurled from around the knife’s handle and pointed to the stock-still Kuyoh. “So you’re a humanoid terminal for what we’re calling the Heavenly Canopy Dominion, are you? How interesting. If you die here, I wonder how she would react.”
Asakura said the most chilling things as though she were chatting about the weather. She hadn’t changed at all from when she’d been the class rep. Was there anyone else in the world like Ryoko Asakura?
I was as still as a dried fish left in the middle of a desert. I couldn’t even tell whether it was hot or cold. All I knew was the dull, chilling glint of the knife’s blade, and Kuyoh’s eyes, quiet as a fourth sub-basement room.
It was too quiet.
The realization hit me. What had happened to the crossing signal’s flashing lights? Where had the raucous clang of the warning bell gone? Why hadn’t the train come?
I looked up. The red signal light was frozen on. The guard bar jutted out diagonally, stopped halfway through its downward arc. There was absolutely no wind. Not a single person walked the path along the road, and there were no cars.
The world had come to a halt.
The clouds in the sky were completely still, and shockingly, when I spotted a crow frozen in mid-flight, I finally realized what had happened.
Space had been frozen.
“What is going on here…?”
Asakura giggled. “I didn’t want anyone interfering. This way no one can observe us, can they? Manipulation of spatial information is my specialty. No one can escape.”
A trap, then. But for whom?
“Now, then, Miss Kuyoh,” continued Asakura happily. “Shall we talk? Or shall we fight? I would love to see just what your kind is capable of. That’s part of my job too.”
Kuyoh remained motionless and expressionless, but she spoke. “… Release that human. The danger is significant… your intent to kill is genuine…”
After she blinked slowly, I saw light in her eyes for the first time.
“It is not you. I have no interest in you. You are not important,” said Kuyoh with the faintest trace of emotion.
“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say. But, fine, if that’s how you feel—”
The hand holding the knife moved, leaving behind only an afterimage. The movement was instantaneous; it was hardly surprising that my eye couldn’t track the motion. I already knew this from my previous experience with Asakura’s extra-dimensional battle against Nagato in the Class 5 classroom. From what I could see, Asakura threw the knife with but a flick of her wrist, sending the weapon flying at Kuyoh at nearly the speed of light, but it took several seconds for my brain to process what I’d seen.
“… Threat level increased two levels,” murmured Kuyoh, stopping the knife by grabbing its hilt. The blade very nearly touched her nose, but she showed no sign of fear whatsoever, and though from my perspective it looked as though she were about to stab herself in the face, it was just the opposite. “… And still rising.”
Both the knife and the slender arm that restrained it were trembling slightly. My god—despite being intercepted by Kuyoh, the projectile Asakura had thrown was still trying to pierce her. Kuyoh’s monstrous ability to stop the ultra-high-speed attack was bad enough, but Asakura was even more horrifying. Just how much kinetic energy had she imbued the knife with? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Not bad,” said Asakura, impressed. “That was just a probe, but it did exceed your estimated capacity. This will be interesting.”
The air behind me began to stir. I was sure that if I looked back I would see the locks of Asakura’s hair begin to float up like so many snakes, but I didn’t dare check to be sure. I couldn’t cover my ears, though.
“Expanding range of data control. Commencing deployment of offensive data. Shifting to termination mode. Requesting authorization of limited-space combat simulation for analysis of target.”
Just as I was putting together the contents of Asakura’s rapid-fire speech, the surrounding scenery shattered and collapsed. It was like a jigsaw puzzle landscape coming to pieces, falling away and revealing what lay behind them. And for a second time I witnessed the mad geometry of Asakura’s data jurisdiction space.
“… Threat level stabilized.” Kuyoh’s pale face was starting to become flushed. Her voice was changing too. “Move away from that human.” Despite the knife still directly in front of her face, her voice betrayed no concern. “You are irrelevant.”
Her statements were now far more comprehensible. Very slowly, as though calming a wild horse, Kuyoh moved the knife aside. As soon as she reached a distance such that the blade would not pass through her hair, she cocked her head and let it go.
The knife Asakura had thrown immediately accelerated to its impossible speed, flying off like a missile, when—
“—!”
I was stunned for a third time. It was starting to get a little tiresome.
A third figure was visible behind Kuyoh—and just as my brain managed to process that fact, Asakura’s knife sped for the figure at hypersonic velocity, and in a carbon copy of what Kuyoh had just done a moment before, the figure caught it right in front of her face. And who should the owner of such acrobatic knife-catching skill be but—
“Miss Kimidori,” said Asakura. “What brings you to a place like this?”
The school uniform–clad Kimidori floated strangely through the geometry of our surroundings. She wore the same calm smile she’d had when she stood beside the student council president. It was such an ordinary expression that it seemed all the stranger given the incomprehensible circumstances. Sorry—I just can’t put this stuff into proper words anymore.
Kimidori turned the hand with which she’d caught the knife, pointing the blade at Asakura. “I’ve come to stop your deviant activities. Your actions are not founded on the consensus of the Data Overmind.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“Yes. I cannot authorize them.”
“Oh really? That’s fine,” replied Asakura with unnerving agreeableness. “Would you give that back?”
Kimidori opened her hand, and the knife flew back through the air, this
time at a speed even my eyes could track—but no sooner had I noticed this than Asakura murmured a brief phrase.
The knife suddenly accelerated, heading straight for the back of Kuyoh’s head, and not at a speed that could be dodged. It was like a laser beam.
“?”
I doubted what my eyes saw.
Kuyoh’s figure seemed to turn two-dimensional, and in the next instant had disappeared.
It was as though she’d suddenly become a flat plane, then disappeared by turning sideways. The sight distracted me such that I only reacquired the position of the knife because it was again in Asakura’s hand, this time held in an overhand grip, its point again at my neck as though she were again readying to slit my throat.
As soon as I comprehended this, a cold sweat broke out on my head.
If Asakura hadn’t stopped it, the blade would’ve gone right through my windpipe. I could barely stand from the terror.
“Did she escape,” said Asakura, uncertainty in her voice.
What, no comment on what had nearly just happened to me?
“No,” said Kimidori, shaking her head, then tilting her head up. “She is here.”
Kuyoh descended directly before my eyes.
Her form came down as though lowered onto a stage from above, and she grabbed Asakura’s knife-holding hand at the wrist, readying her other hand for an open-palmed strike, then unleashing it in a blur of non-motion. At what?
At my face.
“?!”
The situation was fluctuating so rapidly I was completely exhausted. Yet there was not a single thing I could do about it. I was only understanding things well after they’d happened—and this was happening now.
A wind that felt like a solid object hit my hair, and I flinched my eyes closed in spite of myself. I hastily reopened them, and was met by the following scene.
Kuyoh’s hand was stopped just a few millimeters from my forehead, only because Asakura had reached out and grabbed its black-school-uniformed wrist. The hand that wielded the deadly blade had been stopped, just as the hand that was a deadly blade had been stopped. And between the two girls who looked human but were monsters within stood my idiotic self. I’ll say it again: Pathetic.
Was this now twice that Asakura had saved my life? Now wait just a minute—how much sense did that make?
“Miss Kuyoh,” said Asakura teasingly. “What do you want to do with this human? Kill him? Or let him live?”
Kuyoh’s gaze stabbed through me as though I were nothing more than a sandbag, but it then shifted to somewhere past the side of my head, presumably where Asakura’s face was.
“—Query meaning unclear. Define ‘human.’ Define ‘kill.’ Define ‘live.’ ” Her voice seemed to come from some sort of speaker rather than human vocal cords.
“—Define ‘Data Overmind.’ Provide information.”
She spoke as though talking to herself, her expression shifting—well, let’s say it shifted dramatically.
She smiled.
It was a terrifyingly cold, beautiful smile.
While it seemed more like a perfectly executed high-level simulation of a smile than an actual expression of affection, even the most stoic man would find himself stricken with affection upon encountering it. I was about the only one who could withstand it. Someone like Taniguchi who didn’t understand the circumstances would’ve fallen for her in an instant. I was at a total loss for words as Asahina started to speak with bold nonchalance.
“What lovely features you have, Miss Kuyoh. But let’s end this now, shall we? I will not yield a single thing to the Heavenly Canopy Dominion, including the life of this human.”
Their hands bound in mutual deadlock, Kuyoh and Asakura conversed.
—Just what the hell are they talking about?!
I was getting more and more angry.
Incidentally, let me just say this: I am fundamentally a nice person. How nice, you ask? There was the time my sister thought it would be funny to wrap Shamisen up in my favorite muffler, to which he instinctively reacted by converting it to mere wool with his teeth and claws. I let them each off the hook with no more than a poke in the forehead; that’s how nice I am.
And yet this whole situation was starting to really piss me off.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Anyone who’d stand in the middle of this ridiculous situation was screwy. If you need proof, remember that the three other people there were all extraterrestrials.
I was the only normal one. Hence my abject terror. Got a problem with that?
“—Define ‘Heavenly Canopy Dominion.’ ”
Completely ignoring the chat-bot-like query that came from Kuyoh’s exquisite smile, Asakura spoke. “Commencing offensive data strike.”
The ground at my feet started to bubble. The burbling, boiling sound made it feel as if we were in some poisoned swamp. Next, Asakura’s knife sublimated into nothingness, like so much crystal sand. Kuyoh’s wrist where Asakura gripped it was wrapped in a blue-white mosaic. The pattern of hexagons traveled up her arm with startling speed, but no sooner had I witnessed this than Kuyoh’s form seemed to again turn two-dimensional, and in an instant she was no more than a line.
Gooonnngg!
“Hngh—?!”
A loud metallic clang echoed through my ears, as though some kind of colossal tuning fork had been struck. But the sound did not linger, and a sudden silence descended, as though some giant’s hand had simply wiped all sound from the air.
“…”
Ever so hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and saw that Kuyoh was nowhere to be found. The only person in front of me was Kimidori. Behind me still lingered the presence of the other, more terrifying girl.
The harsh-looking geometric background was swept away, and the scenery returned to its previous setting beside the rail crossing, bringing my surroundings closer to normal, though at this point I was no longer surprised by such changes.
“Did she actually escape this time?” From behind me Asakura put the question to Kimidori.
“The data protection field you erected was penetrated by an unknown form of focused data. I am currently tracking the target and repairing local space.”
“A shift in the physical dimensionality of her corporeal data… clearly she’s a very different sort of terminal than we are. She has no need for authorization.”
“She does not seem to have been created to communicate with humans. In fact, I would surmise she was constructed as an interpretation platform for discourse with us. We could even deduce that her interest in Haruhi Suzumiya comes from conclusions derived from observing the Data Overmind.”
“It’s hard to imagine she’s a mere terminal. She broke my data offensive without needing to decode it.”
“Given that their logical foundation is so different, inflicting fatal damage will require analysis of the algorithms of the domain to which she is connected.”
“I’ll leave that to you, Miss Kimidori. You managed to collect a little data in all of this, didn’t you? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to pick up all the fragments and analyze the greater structure of the platform?”
“Independent action is not authorized.”
“You sound like Miss Nagato. But I think at the moment she would be inclined to agree with me.”
“I will suspend you. The Data Overmind has not authorized this.”
“Goodness,” said Asakura, affecting surprise. “And just when did you become the Data Overmind’s representative?”
“The interface designated Yuki Nagato transferred a subset of her autonomous judgment heuristics to me. She proposed the transfer, which was approved by the central consciousness of the Data Overmind. My actions are consistent with the general consensus of the Overmind.”
“Did you say ‘consensus’? You mean those lazy conservatives desperate to maintain the status quo? Or are you just trying to call me the minority?”
“Both.”
Asakura laughed in her perfect-student voice. “My behav
ior patterns are unchanged from their previous alignment, and have still not been overwritten.”
“You are a backup resource to be deployed only in emergencies. Yuki Nagato and I have acknowledged only that your abilities are necessary in a limited capacity. Your utility is only slightly greater than the risks you pose.”
“I suppose I should thank you, then. I was revived because of you.”
“I have been given the authority to cancel your data integration.”
“So I can’t beat you, then. Fine. All I plan to do is take action according to my own will. I learned that from Miss Nagato—where the potential for self-evolution lies. Don’t you know, Miss Kimidori? She’s no longer a mere terminal. Given that, don’t you think we can do the same thing?”
No, I didn’t. One Nagato was more than enough for me. I had to thank Asakura for stopping Kuyoh’s attack. But I had to say it again:
Nagato was enough for me. As for you, Asakura? I don’t need you.
“How cruel you are!” said Asakura, obviously amused.
I wanted to say another thing, I told them. Why were they having a philosophical debate with me right here between them? Would it kill them to put themselves in my shoes a little and think about how this absurd conversation sounded to me?
“You heard the boy, Miss Kimidori.”
And another thing—if Asakura had time to be pointing a knife at my throat, she could damned well go and make Nagato some food or something, I said. That was the kind of person she used to be, anyway.
“Is that the way you talk to the person who saved you from the evil alien?” said Asakura happily, her feelings seemingly not hurt in the slightest. “Unfortunately, I can’t maintain this form for long periods of time. If you’ve got complaints on that count, talk to our illustrious upperclassman and the majority faction of the Data Overmind. Or try asking Nagato? If she agrees, I might even be able to come back from Canada.”
No thanks. I couldn’t see any way Haruhi would accept such a development. Asakura could just stay an exchange student for as long as she liked, I said.
“Oh? That’s too bad.” Asakura laughed like a little ripple. “Well, it looks like my limited activities are about to end. Call me again sometime. I’ll always come out. So long as the scary girl over there doesn’t stop me, that is.”
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 3