The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  What pulled me out of my retrospection was Koizumi’s voice, speaking as though sentimentality was something for other people.

  “I didn’t plan on this, but there’s another thing I personally think I should say. To be perfectly honest, you are being too considerate of Nagato. It’s been especially noticeable since winter vacation.”

  Yeah, and did he have some kinda problem with that? I asked.

  “Not at all. Nagato is clearly worthy of that level of trust. I’m sure it’s difficult for you to accept that she’s fallen into a state of malfunction. But if you worry about her to the exclusion of your surroundings, you’re misplacing your priorities.”

  He better not be implying that Nagato was a minor detail.

  “Indeed I am not. Please, think about this. An unknown interaction with another extraterrestrial life form is what’s causing Nagato’s present condition. Neither the time traveler’s nor the esper’s groups are involved, and indeed they couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to. But this kind of conflict can be manipulated by a third party.”

  This didn’t seem like the kind of conversation we should be having outside the bathroom, but Koizumi smoothly continued.

  “Logically, people from the future should have knowledge of the past. So Asahina is not an ordinary time traveler. And that’s what makes her unique. It’s not clear what her position of ignorance implies, but it’s also not impossible to guess. From the perspective of people further in the future than Asahina, she’s the perfect decoy for us in the past.”

  He’d said something like that before.

  “Consider this: Given that there must be people who knew in advance that Nagato would be forcibly deactivated, they would be able to move with that timing. She’s the SOS Brigade’s most powerful asset, and she’s won your trust above all others. And you’ve gained hers. And since you now surely regard Asahina’s enemies as your own, that means Nagato does too. What a time traveler least wants to see intervening is a humanoid interface from the Data Overmind, especially Nagato, who happens to be our beloved comrade.”

  So now that Nagato was out of commission, that time-traveling bastard Fujiwara or whatever his name was… this was his best chance.

  But what was he planning? I asked.

  “That I do not know.” Koizumi gave a hopeful smile. “I was vaguely hoping you would be able to shed some light on that.”

  Fine, then. It looked as if his hopes rested on my efforts. Fine, then, Koizumi—you just stay in the clubroom and wait. Haruhi and Asahina’s job was to nurse Nagato back to health.

  And I’d go do my job.

  “Finally, this isn’t a report so much as it is a low-probability conjecture on my part, but…” Koizumi seemed to hesitate, not sure whether he should continue or not. Noticing his serious face, I jerked my chin up, motioning for him to continue.

  “As I said before, have stopped appearing, which is curious. One possible interpretation is that Suzumiya’s attention has been diverted—but we may have seriously misunderstood the situation.”

  So what was that supposed to mean? Those jolly blue giants are just trying to trick us into thinking they’ve disappeared, when they’ve actually gone off to train?

  “Something like that, yes. I can’t rid myself of the suspicion that the have gone off to build up their energy reserves in anticipation of something else they expect to face. This may be no more than ungrounded worry on my part, but it is something I’m worried about.”

  So they were saving up their power? Surely not, I said. I couldn’t imagine those glowing blue monsters were capable of that kind of forethought. They weren’t in the training montage of some shonen manga, after all.

  “Indeed, I may be overthinking the situation. In any case, should the reappear we will also be summoned, so we’ll know about it immediately.” Koizumi smiled, and brushed his hair aside as though it was his signature pose.

  Not wanting to chat in front of the boys’ washroom any more than I had to, I took my leave of Koizumi and headed merrily back to my classroom.

  And then I realized I’d forgotten my original reason for heading for the washroom, so I turned around and went back. What of it? Go ahead and call me an airhead; I don’t mind.

  Even someone like me has enough time to go to the bathroom during lunch.

  When I didn’t have time was after school, when I met up with Sasaki and the rest of her crowd.

  The chime rang out over the school PA system, signaling the end of the day’s classes—roughly simultaneously with that, Haruhi took her bag and flew out of the classroom. I imagined she was heading for the senior classroom where Asahina was stationed.

  I could’ve walked with Haruhi all the way to Nagato’s apartment before I split up with her, but there wasn’t any reason for me to. The only thing on Haruhi’s mind was the image of a sick, bedridden Nagato.

  One could hardly doubt Haruhi’s skill at cooking, and I’d personally experienced her fixation on nursing, and she and Asahina made a fetching pair, so I had no qualms leaving Nagato’s daily care to the brigade chief. At the very least, Nagato wouldn’t go hungry. And the fact that the cause of the problem wasn’t within Nagato at all meant the burden of actually solving it fell to me.

  So who was I going to have to lean on? Both the Data Overmind and the Heavenly Canopy Dominion were well out of my grasp. I had to rely on Pascal’s law. If I applied pressure to one area, that pressure would be transmitted elsewhere.

  Now, then—where to poke?

  As I walked down the hill from school alone for the first time in quite a while, I tried hard to stay cool and focus my resolve. I couldn’t communicate with the alien. Trying to have an honest conversation with the time traveler seemed impossible. That left Kyoko Tachibana, if I could get to her through Sasaki.

  I drifted through the groups of students heading home, but my thoughts were on the clubroom. Right about then, Koizumi was probably killing time there, playing his role as doorman. Or maybe he was chatting with a freshman who’d popped in after having seen one of Haruhi’s flyers…

  That was the place where the brigade members would all eventually meet back up, even if they’d gone their separate ways. Our lieutenant brigade chief had better watch over it. If any new member hopefuls came by, I hoped he’d send them politely on their way. We had to avoid wrecking the lives of the youth, after all.

  The path I silently trod seemed long. Subjectively, it felt as if it took twice as long as usual to reach my beloved bicycle, which I mounted, pedaling myself toward the station. I had plenty of time until my meeting with Sasaki, but I just couldn’t relax, and hurried myself along for no good reason. Why couldn’t I save up time to use later? I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d been able to move this block back to this morning, the whole day would’ve been more meaningful.

  Of course, I didn’t hold my time as precious as Haruhi did. She was eccentric enough to want to fill every single day with fun memories that would last forever, but unlike her I wasn’t so abnormal, and thus killed time by riding aimlessly around the predetermined spot, stopping in front of the station at the scheduled meeting time of four thirty PM. Sorry, city officials—I had to leave my bike there for a little while. But at that hour I doubted any would be coming to check.

  I waited for a while, and eventually in the flow of people leaving the station I spotted my former classmate wearing a school uniform that was relatively uncommon in this area, along with a pleasant smile. Something about her smooth stride made me feel better. Something about her appearance gave off the sense of being a pleasant person, and I knew from experience that it was true. Sasaki was about a million times better of a person than I was.

  It almost made me feel bad that she considered me a good friend.

  “Heya, Kyon. Did you wait?”

  Not too long, I said. The minute hand had several minutes to go before it pointed straight down. And one girl who’d levy a fine for early arrival was more tha
n enough.

  Sasaki chuckled, her eyes and mouth curving beautifully. “I made you wait, didn’t I? Well, the time you spent is equivalent to my subjective time, so let’s just call it even.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “It’s simple. I was actually on a train that arrived here about half an hour ago. School just happened to get out a little early, you see. And while it’s nice to arrive a bit early, half an hour would just make me look bad—but it’s still not much time. But there’s no fun in just waiting for that long, I was thinking, and just then I saw you ride by on your bike. You had this look on your face like you were thinking really hard about something, so instead of calling out I just watched you. I was impressed how long you rode around without getting bored. Do you really enjoy cycling so much?”

  How could I hate it? This bike was my beloved partner of many years. And my brain worked better when I was moving around than when I was standing still. The reason my test scores were so bad was probably because I had to crouch over a desk the whole time, I said.

  “How practical of you. Although you may be suited to scholarship too. You’re quite right. The reason we think of things so easily while bathing or walking is because our brains find mechanical action boring, which gives them the capacity to consider other topics. Bathing, exercising—these are things we’re accustomed to. There’s no particular need for conscious thought, so they get done without it. That might be a better way to think, as opposed to just racking our brains. It’s true that routine work is never fun, but by getting on a train with a set destination, we’re free to appreciate the scenery along the way. Depending on the person, there are some who would consider that a waste of time, but I don’t think there’s much potential for happiness in that kind of time-is-money attitude.”

  I wasn’t going to check her references, but the argument seemed sound.

  “Similarly, Kyon, I always make sure to leave an escape route for myself. That way, regardless of how difficult the situation might be, I always know there’s something I can do. And that, in turn, lets me be a little adventurous. It’s like a horror movie or a roller coaster. They always end. Regardless of their form, nothing in this world lasts forever.”

  At the moment, I wasn’t particularly hoping anything would last forever, so I was only half-listening to what Sasaki said. If this conversation went on like this much longer, I was going to lose track of the reason I’d skipped Nagato’s apartment to come here.

  I looked around and confirmed that there was no sign of Sasaki’s minions—with all due respect, I couldn’t think of a better term for them. “So where are they?”

  “They’ve already arrived. Half an hour ago I contacted them and told them to wait in the café,” she said as though she were saying hi to the neighbor lady, then picked up her light-seeming bag and slung it over her shoulder. She gave me a furtive, upturned glance, and then in a voice like she was heading out to cheer on her school’s baseball team from the bleachers during a championship game, said, “Shall we go?”

  But of course. That was why I was there.

  I was facing a battle on whose outcome rested my own right to exist. This was for world stability. This was to ease Haruhi’s subconscious stress level, to reduce the amount of the Agency’s covert activity (and also let Koizumi catch up on his sleep), to lower Asahina’s internal anguish, and to restore Nagato to health.

  It all depended on my ability to smooth-talk—the organization that opposed the Agency and mistakenly revered Sasaki as a god. The Heavenly Blah Blah Dominion, those super-stupid aliens who despite their lack of any clear goal had put Nagato out of commission. That time-traveling clown who’d come all the way back from the future just to snicker at us behind his mask, his face a conceited sneer as though he really was a descendant of the noble Fujiwara lineage.

  I was fully aware that this was the decisive battle—my Tennozan, my Red Cliffs, my Sekigahara. It was as though I were in currents of history. If I could’ve split into two, I could’ve divided my forces like the Sanada clan did, but unfortunately I possessed but one physical body. I would have to be ready.

  I could ask no one for help. Koizumi was keeping watch in the clubroom, Haruhi had returned to Nagato’s apartment, and this was no place for Asahina. I hadn’t gotten any secret messages from her older self recently, which meant this was a historical event that not even the goddess Asahina the Elder could change. Should Kimidori happen to wander by, or Asakura be revived yet again, I was fully ready to tell them “no need.” And I’d repeated it as much as necessary.

  This was Earth, and Earth belonged to the Earthlings.

  That authority did not rest with any single person. Not with the secretary general of the United Nations, much less with Haruhi.

  Haruhi had but one title, and that was brigade chief of the SOS Brigade, an unauthorized student organization at North Prefectural High School—no more and no less.

  That was the greatest evidence in a database that hadn’t changed since the beginning of her first year of high school. Like Haruhi had once said…

  —In times like this, whoever strikes first wins!

  The thought struck me afresh. Haruhi, you’re amazing. You said you were going to form a brigade before you had any idea what shape it would take. And to think it came together exactly the way you’d envisioned it would—no wonder Koizumi’s passively stated thesis that “Suzumiya = God” had managed to transfix me so.

  Of course, whether or not I actually believed it was a different matter.

  If we were just talking about faith, I’d never given confession or been baptized, but even so I sometimes wanted to cling to the idea of God. Or to the dingy shrine whose offering box I sometimes tossed coins into. Or even the priests who’d come during the Bon festival to chant sutras, even though I had no idea what sect they were from.

  If a little worship was all it took to make things work out, that would be the easiest thing in the world, and in the entirety of my experience, doing so had not resulted in even the smallest lessening of my difficulties, so I recommended just saying a prayer in front of a little roadside kasajizo Buddha and leaving it at that. On top of the fact that relying on a higher power to realize your hopes was pointless, it wouldn’t do you any good either. Better to just pick away at a problem yourself, just like the guy in Onshu no Kanata ni. If he can dig through a mountain by hand, then so can I.

  Now for the first step. With Nagato sick, it wasn’t just Kuyoh I had to worry about; Asakura and Kimidori had shown themselves as well. They were all using the Earth as a stage for some kind of martial arts skit, minus the audience. The only person watching the performance was me, and having seen it I couldn’t just stay silent.

  It fell to me to resolve all of this peacefully before Haruhi couldn’t take it anymore—and this was doubly true given Nagato’s illness.

  Kyoko Tachibana had claimed that Sasaki was the one who should hold true power.

  Fujiwara had said that it didn’t matter who had the power.

  Kuyoh Suoh had said that what she was interested in was neither me nor Haruhi, but the Data Overmind’s interface.

  What a mess.

  If only I had a little more time. Maybe that fake SOS Brigade had enough time on their hands that they could wander the land as if they thought they were the Crepe Seller of Echigo. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the Edo era, it was the Information Age, and the Tokugawa crest didn’t carry any authority here.

  On top of that, no matter where I looked, it was hard to imagine that any of the non-normal human players were on my side. Asakura and her knife had been revived. Regardless of what Kimidori’s leanings were, her only job was to report back to her boss. Kuyoh was a mechanical doll who didn’t seem to care much whether I lived or died, and whatever it was that Fujiwara knew about this time period, he couldn’t keep that derisive sneer off his face. The only one who seemed to feel any urgency at all was Kyoko Tachibana, and from what I could tell she was the least powerful. About all s
he seemed capable of doing was getting manipulated by Koizumi’s Agency.

  So she was the one I’d have to deal with.

  To Koizumi: a mysterious being. To Asahina the Elder: a temporal junction. To Nagato: the key to the possibility of self-evolution.

  In other words: me. And I myself had no idea what I was. I could admit that I was living a somewhat unusual life for a high schooler, but that didn’t mean there was anything particularly special about me. Up until the day Haruhi grabbed me by the collar and slammed the back of my head down onto the desk behind me, I’d been a totally normal, unremarkable, generic student at a prefectural high school.

  What did I have to do to get things to turn out the way I wanted them to? In what direction did I need to go? Should I continue along with Haruhi, or would I need to try to foment a change in doctrine?

  I wondered if those questions would be settled at the familiar café to which Sasaki and I were headed.

  So here are some questions for you. If you’ve already forged a path for yourself and decided to pursue it, but then discovered an easier parallel path, which do you choose?

  Do you stick to your original intentions despite the difficulties, or take the less burdensome path?

  It was exactly that choice that I was being confronted with.

  There in the same old café, against the wall sat three figures, with three different expressions on their faces.

  Though it might have been an act, only Kyoko Tachibana seemed pleasant; Fujiwara was as cynical and derisive as ever, and Kuyoh didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow. I don’t know whether the fact that she could sit there as still as a stop-motion puppet despite yesterday’s big dust-up with Asakura and Kimidori was because she was just that gutsy, or rather because her psychology simply didn’t account for such context.