The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

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  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  First released in Japan in 2003, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya quickly established itself as a publishing phenomenon, drawing much of its inspiration from Japanese pop culture and Japanese comics in particular. With this foundation, the original publication of each book in the Haruhi series included several black-and-white spot illustrations as well as a four-page color insert—all of which are faithfully reproduced here to preserve the authenticity of the first-ever English edition.

  PROLOGUE

  Haruhi Suzumiya was behaving herself.

  Neither melancholy nor sighing, and in point of fact not even seeming bored, she had of late been strangely quiet—and that inexplicable calmness worried me.

  I’m not, of course, talking about a physical quietness, much less an emotional one. For one thing, Haruhi doesn’t have the self-doubt it would take to alter her already formed personality, and even if she did, that would probably wind up turning into a different kind of pain in the ass for me, so I had no intention of attempting to remedy that situation—but in any case, it was like the color of her aura as it might show up in Kirlian photography had dimmed from red to a kind of orange.

  Among her classmates, there was only one or maybe two at the outside who would have noticed the change. I can tell you with certainty who one of them was: me. She’d sat directly behind me ever since we started high school, and I see even more of her after school, so nobody’s in a better position to notice such changes. And while she may seem calmer at the moment, her gaze that challenges all of creation is still there, as well as her action potential, tireless until satisfied.

  She’d only managed to get second place in the school-wide hyakunin isshu poetry memorization competition late last month, but this month she’d won the school marathon—incidentally, it was Nagato who won the hyakunin isshu; she placed second in the marathon. Excelling in fields both literary and martial with their one-two finishes, the SOS Brigade chief and the resident bookworm had the entire school (including me) wondering just what the brigade was up to.

  If there was one thing I was sure I understood, based on my experiences thus far, it was that when Haruhi got like this, she was without a doubt formulating some sort of evil scheme. And once she’d hit upon it, her face would light up with a smile, as surely as the sun rises.

  I can’t remember any instances of that not happening. Have there been any? Were there any sections in the history book within my mind where Haruhi had stayed calm and constant?

  The worst storms are always portended by a fleeting calm. It has ever been thus.

  So, then—

  It is early February, the final stage of winter’s coldest period.

  The last year, with all its insanity, is now more than a month gone. If it felt as if time had passed especially quickly, it was probably due to January being full of activities surrounding New Year’s.

  Here I’d like to turn back time for a moment. I had no idea what Haruhi may have been planning, but I had my own business to come to terms with. February might seem too early to be already looking back on the year, but I’ve decided to tell the story of something I had to do—no, something I wanted to do.

  During the whole thing, I had a single notion running through my head.

  Finish what’s been left undone, as quickly as you can.

  Although it was during the winter break trip that I made up my mind to do this, I needed some time before I could put it into action.

  This story starts on the second day of January, in front of the same train station we always use.

  …

  …

  …

  The winter vacation affair that had us stranded in the middle of a blizzard and trapped within a mysterious mansion ended on the second of January, with the return of the SOS Brigade from its “training camp” deep in the mountains.

  “Whew, we’re home!”

  Haruhi greeted our little suburb, narrowing her eyes at the setting sun.

  “It’s always relaxing to be home. Snowy mountains are nice and all, but nothing beats the smell of home, even if it is a little musty.”

  Having taken a different route, the Tamaru brothers, along with Mori and Arakawa, were no longer with us. Thus the only ones collecting their luggage at the small, homey train station were Haruhi and Tsuruya with their tireless superalloy constitutions, Asahina (to whom my sister clung possessively), and the expressionless-as-always Nagato, along with Koizumi (who wore a tired, resigned smile) and me, holding Shamisen the cat in a carrier. I had the feeling that it was still plenty of people.

  “So, that’s all for today.” Haruhi’s face was content. “Everybody make sure to rest up. We’re hitting the neighborhood shrines and temples for hatsumoude tomorrow, got it? Meet here at nine AM. Oh, Tsuruya—do you have any plans?”

  You have to admire the kind of vitality that lets someone make plans to go back out the day after returning home from a trip, especially for something like a New Year’s temple visit, but unfortunately, ordinary humans—take me, for example—aren’t powered by internal perpetual motion machines. Tsuruya seemed to have a capacity to match Haruhi as she replied, though.

  “Sorry! I’m heading to Switzerland tomorrow! I’ll bring back souvenirs, so toss a little extra in the offering boxes for me, okay?” Tsuruya dug some small change out of her wallet and handed it to Asahina, continuing, “Here, a New Year’s present!” She gave some to my little sister too. “Bye-bye! See you next semester!”

  She smiled and waved as she left the station. She seemed totally relaxed; it was enough to make me want to ask her parents just how they raised a daughter like that, just for my own future reference.

  Haruhi kept waving until the older girl’s relentless smile disappeared behind an apartment building. “Well, then, shall we all head home? Take care, everybody! The club trip isn’t over until you make it home!”

  If anything else happened, I doubted Koizumi or I would be able to handle it, but surely nothing weird would happen in the time it would take us to return to our homes from the train station.

  I looked at Nagato. The affliction she’d suffered in the mys-tery house had vanished, and she’d returned to her normal, impossible-to-read state of expressionlessness—but just as I was noting this, her eyes moved slightly, and her gaze met mine. I don’t think the tiny nod I perceived from her was an illusion.

  I then looked to Asahina. She’d been largely oblivious during the entire trip; her cluelessness had spilled over into uncertainty during the mystery house episode, but in retrospect that may have been for the best. She would have a much larger role to play starting now. I looked at her meaningfully, but unfortunately she missed my signals completely, instead playing happily with my sister as though they were the same age.

  “Okay, see you all tomorrow! Make sure you grab your New Year’s money—there’re gonna be stalls lined up all around the shrines and temples.”

  Once Haruhi had said her piece, I left her and Asahina and boarded the bus, dragging my sister and Shamisen (in his cat carrier) on board with me.

  “Bye, Mikuru!”

  As I hauled my re
calcitrant sister back to the bus seat, Asahina waved repeatedly with one hand, her other tightly clenched. I really didn’t feel like waving, although Haruhi or Koizumi probably would’ve yelled a loud “Bye-bye!”

  A few minutes after we returned home and I’d gotten Shamisen and my sister out of my hair, I called the two brigade members of whom I’d just taken my leave.

  Why?

  Because there was something I’d deeply regretted leaving undone before the year’s end, and I wanted to fix that as soon as possible. I didn’t want to break out in a cold sweat because of my own laziness like that ever again, and while part of me wanted to go back and teach my self of late last year a lesson or two, I needed to go back a little further. Thanks to Nagato’s and Koizumi’s efforts, we’d managed to avoid the worst-case scenario at the mysterious lodge, but there was no guarantee we wouldn’t wind up in a similar situation again—in fact, it seemed unavoidable. I’d hesitated to take action during the trip, reasoning that it would cause trouble, but now that the club members had gone their separate ways, I would dither no further. I’d had plenty of time to make up my mind during the game-playing and mystery-solving at Tsuruya’s villa.

  I had to go. I had to go with Nagato and Asahina back to that day.

  Yes—back to the morning of December eighteenth.

  Without taking any time to recover from the exhaustion of the winter trip, I first called Asahina. She sounded a bit surprised to be receiving a phone call from someone with whom she’d parted ways so recently.

  “Oh, Kyon—what is it?”

  “There’s somewhere I want you to go with me. Immediately, if possible.”

  “Wha…? Where?”

  “December eighteenth of last year.”

  She sounded confused and taken aback. “Wh-what do you mean—?”

  “I want you to take Nagato and me back in time. The three of us have to go back two weeks.”

  “What? No, my TP—I mean, I can’t just change time whenever I want to. It takes thorough investigation and the permission of a lot of people!”

  I was willing to bet she’d have no trouble getting that permission. My mind filled with an image of Asahina the Elder, winking at me and blowing me a kiss.

  “Asahina, please contact your superiors or whatever they are immediately. Tell them I want to return to the morning of December eighteenth with you and Nagato.”

  Maybe thanks to my overconfident tone, Asahina’s little sounds of hesitation that leaked through the phone’s receiver fell silent. “W-wait just a moment.”

  Oh, I waited. I was fascinated to know just how one communicated with the future, but all I could hear was the quiet sound of Asahina’s breathing. After no more than ten seconds of that background music—

  “I don’t believe it…” Her voice sounded dazed. “I’ve received permission. But… why? Why so easily?”

  It was because the future now rested on my shoulders—but I didn’t want to have a long conversation about it, so I just said, “Let’s meet at Nagato’s apartment. You can be there in half an hour, right?”

  “Oh—wait. Let me have an hour. I want to confirm things again, and also I would rather just… meet in front of Nagato’s apartment building.”

  I readily agreed, then after taking a moment to grin privately at Asahina’s surprise, I straightened and turned serious again. The time period I was proposing to revisit was not one that inspired a pleasant smile. I knew that better than anybody else.

  The next person I planned to contact would probably have understood everything without my saying a word, but better safe than sorry. I picked up the phone again.

  An hour later—

  I’d arrived early, having gotten excited and sprinted over on my bike. I had been waiting at the entrance to Nagato’s luxurious apartment building for fifteen minutes, stomping my feet to stave off the cold. Finally a fluffy-looking silhouette approached. Either she hadn’t thought to change clothes or hadn’t had time—although to be fair, neither had I.

  “Kyon.” Asahina looked at me, full of wonderment. “I just don’t understand it. Why was your request so easily granted? Not just that—I was ordered to go with you and Nagato. When I asked for details, it was totally classified. And… I was instructed to do everything you tell me to do. Why?”

  “I’ll explain. In Nagato’s room,” I said, punching the code for Nagato’s room into the panel in the entryway, then pushing the buzzer. The response was quick.

  “…”

  “It’s me.”

  “Come in.”

  I passed right through the now-unlocked door—whoops, couldn’t forget about Asahina. She still seemed pretty dumbfounded by all of this, and she took a moment to catch up with me. She had the same timid demeanor she always had when she came here. It was as though her nervous face were surrounded by question marks there in the elevator.

  Nagato opening the door and letting us into her apartment didn’t do anything to change Asahina’s expression.

  Nagato seemed unhurried. Despite being back at her house, she’d changed into her school uniform. The fact that it made me feel so at ease wasn’t because I have a school uniform fetish, but rather because I knew she would understand my situation.

  Earlier, I’d lost consciousness as I watched a short-haired figure in a school uniform holding a knife. Given what we were about to do, it would probably be hard for my past self to see her in any other outfit. I doubt I would mistake Nagato for anybody else, but the uniform had really become her trademark.

  “…”

  She wordlessly indicated that we should sit in the living room as she went into the kitchen to prepare tea.

  I took the opportunity to relate to Asahina the details of the adventure before last.

  “I don’t believe it…” Asahina murmured, her eyes wide and round. “History was completely changed, and I didn’t notice a thing…”

  Her shock was understandable. The only one with an accurate memory during those three days was me, and without Nagato’s hint and the other Haruhi’s unhesitating action, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.

  “A global alteration of space-time and direct intervention from the future… for both of those things to happen at the same time, it’s…” Asahina’s voice quivered as her gaze swam around the spartan room. There were three cups of tea now on the table in the living room. Nagato had made it for us, but Asahina was so stunned as she listened to my explanation (and Nagato’s occasional “Yes”) that she hadn’t touched her cup, and it was growing cool.

  “…”

  Diagonally across from me, Nagato regarded Asahina, then looked questioningly at me before looking again at Asahina.

  I had a pretty good idea of what Nagato wanted to say. What I’d explained to Asahina was that errors had accumulated in Nagato’s system, causing her to rewrite the world on December eighteenth, but that using her escape program I’d been able to successfully travel back in time, to the day of Tanabata four years earlier. There, I’d enlisted the aid of pre-buggy Nagato to make it back to December eighteenth, but there I’d had the misfortune to encounter Ryoko Asakura, who’d mortally wounded me—but just before I lost consciousness, I’d seen Nagato and Asahina, along with myself, presumably having traveled back from the future to set things right. Nagato might have some things to add to this incomprehensible explanation.

  And that wasn’t even the whole story. I hadn’t said anything about the fact that the elder Asahina had waited for me there, four years in the past. I wasn’t at all certain it was something I should mention. It was obvious that the elder Asahina was keeping her younger counterpart deliberately in the dark about all this. The younger Asahina was still in regular contact with the future, so if it were that important for her to know something, I’d leave it to her superiors to clue her in. I didn’t know anything about their information exchange system, but I could make an educated guess based on things she’d said. “When I asked for details, it was totally classified,” she’d
said earlier.

  Asahina didn’t know. Knowledge was being deliberately kept from her.

  I had no idea why that was. But it was obvious to me. It had occurred to me several times that she was awfully careless for a time traveler. The August where we nearly got stuck in an infinite time loop, and the strange house that suddenly appeared in the middle of a blizzard—at the very least, she could’ve given us some kind of futuristic warning so we could’ve avoided the trouble those two incidents had caused. Why hadn’t she?

  I had an idea why.

  Asahina the Elder had to know everything. Her former self—that is to say, the current Asahina—had to go through all these experiences. Anything that let us avoid them would change her own history. Perhaps she had no choice but to experience these things, just as Nagato could predict her own malfunction but in the end could do nothing to avoid it.

  But it made me feel truly sorry for the current Asahina. She’d endured even more moments of shock throughout her SOS Brigade experiences than I had. I was even starting to be suspicious of her real purpose in this time period. If they just needed to surveil Haruhi, wouldn’t a simple spy camera have sufficed?

  There had to be something else—something not even this Asahina knows, but that her older self does know…

  A freeze-dried voice addressed me as I was deep in thought.

  “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  I was happy to listen to anything Nagato would ask of me.

  “I want you not to say anything to my self in that time.”

  Not even “Hey” or “Hi?” I wanted to know.

  “If possible, no.”

  In Nagato’s stoic eyes was visible a rare expressiveness. Her black pupils entreated me, and I would have sooner agreed to scoop the moon’s reflection out of a pond than I would have refused her.

  “Okay. If you say so, I’ll try not to.”

  The artlessly short head of hair nodded slowly.

  It fell to Nagato to explain the fine details of the space-time manipulation, and Asahina would be the one to faithfully carry them out. I’m sorry, but I didn’t care how powerful Koizumi’s Agency was—they were no match for this alliance of alien and time traveler. Although I have no idea if they ever plan on fighting.