Volume 7 - The Intrigues of Suzumiya Haruhi

by Tanigawa Nagaru

  “Erase all your memories concerning this incident.”

  “No one can guarantee that something that hasn’t happened would ever occur.”

  The Asahina-san from a week later once guaranteed that she has never seen herself, so I went to great lengths to make sure they never see each other. If they really do meet, I don’t suppose much harm could be done.

  That’s because the problem could be solved simply by erasing the present Asahina-san’s memory, so that when she travels back to the past a week ago she wouldn’t have remembered a thing. So it doesn’t make much of a difference whether they met or not.

  I felt a surge of negative feelings coming from my chest, this being the same feeling that I vented against the Integrated Data Sentient Entity when lying in the hospital bed last time, but this time those feelings were towards Asahina-san (big).

  She had been toying with her past self, that is Asahina-san (small), in the palm of her hand. Making this Asahina-san play the role of a clumsy and unreliable cute elder-sister. Yeah, I know you had no choice, but to allow your past self to experience history as you had remembered it. This must be what Koizumi was saying about the future doing something about the past. But couldn’t you come up with something better?

  The curse that was constraining my head was finally released, I nearly spent an hour just trying to get out of this dizziness. Yet by the time I wanted to say what I was feeling, I found there was no one standing beside me.

  Asahina-san had vanished into thin air just next to me, only I remained sitting on the bench under the dimly lit street lamps. However, in Asahina-san’s place on the bench was a small box.

  It was a delicately wrapped, square-shaped box with a ribbon on top.

  It even came with a card. Placing it under the light, I found a single line that said, “Happy Valentine.”

  A box of chocolate that could be found anywhere, without any flavors or styles from the future. Are chocolate recipes the same throughout the ages? Or did she make this chocolate according to the recipes of this time period?

  “But Asahina-san…”

  You can’t just keep me quiet like that. Yeah, you did make an exception and provided information, but that’s not good enough. Leaving aside the fact that you said nothing about you getting kidnapped, but you were obviously hiding the truth behind Haruhi’s treasure hunting and the gourd-shaped rock on purpose! That’s right, there’s something fishy about this. Haruhi could have buried the chocolates anywhere, for what reason must it be buried by that gourd-shaped rock? And why did it have to be moved in the first place?

  Could this all be within the calculations of Asahina-san (big)? Has she clearly listed everything that I would do in her pre-determined list?

  “Everything is now over…”

  Looks like it’s still too early for that. There’ll come a day when I would come to this place again, I might very well bring everyone from the SOS Brigade then, so you’d better come up with a satisfactory explanation for Koizumi and Haruhi! I’m just a mere observer, after all.

  I quickly made a phone call,

  “Hello? Is this Tsuruya-san? It’s me, well um, Michiru-san has gone home already, she wanted me to thank you for taking care of her, and she said she would return the clothes you lent her… huh, really? Oh and, when you see Asahina-san the day after tomorrow apologizing to you for no reason, please let her be. And can you please bring the North High uniform she left behind to school tomorrow? Yes, bring it to me before school ends,”

  This was all that I needed to do up till now, after hearing Tsuruya-san going “Okay~” on the other side of the phone, I adjusted my breathing and said,

  “There’s one more thing I need to tell you, and this is the most important. You know your family’s private hill? The one with the treasure map, that is. I see, it’s fine. I never thought Haruhi would go in such a large circle just to… Yeah, I got four, um I mean, three from them. It’s pretty interesting,”

  I tried to suppress Tsuruya-san’s deafening laughter and continued,

  “You know from that treasure map, you could actually climb the hill from a path that leads from the marsh grass fields? Great, that makes things easier to explain. From this path you’ll come to a flat plateau, do you know there’s a rock that resembles the shape of a gourd? I’m not kidding, honest. Go east about three meters from that rock and try digging on that spot, who knows, you might find something.”

  I then said to Tsuruya-san, who was sounding very puzzled,

  “I don’t have any evidence, so I can’t be absolutely sure. But there should be something,”

  If I hadn’t moved the stone from that place, Haruhi would have probably asked us to dig on that spot the moment she saw the rock. And she might have ended up discovering something that’s not supposed to be found and discovered.

  All I did was merely move the stone westwards for about three meters.

  After giving some random responses to Tsuruya-san, I hung up the phone.

  This is a small act of defiance from me, Asahina-san (big). I have no intention of playing mind games with you and your different versions of futures, I just want to play a prank from time to time.

  Though I wouldn’t go as far as Haruhi would, of course.

  Epilogue

  The next day, after just making it to school on time I barged into the classroom, and ignoring Taniguchi looking grumpy and Kunikida chatting with other classmates, I sat down and began flirting with the person behind me,

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “I’m fine, of course!”

  Has Haruhi’s gentle cat-smile, an indicator of her being up to no good, returned? Whoa! She didn’t even look at me when she made that grin. Looks like she’s the sort that would change moods after sleeping for one night.

  When the first bell rang, Haruhi stretched her neck from behind and whispered to my ear,

  “Kyon, I’m warning you, don’t go around talking about what happened yesterday. Especially not to Taniguchi. This has got be kept a secret at all costs, or else it’ll be so embarra… ahem, anyway just don’t go around announcing it. Gifts are best cherished.”

  What the hell are you talking about? Once something has entered my pocket, don’t even think of wanting it back, especially when it comes to food!

  “Who says I’m asking you to return it? What are you getting so uptight for? If I wanted it back, I wouldn’t have given it to you in the first place. Anyway, we’re gonna be busy after school, so be prepared.”

  Roger that. Actually, I haven’t been able to relax today, as I’ve got to send today’s Asahina-san back to eight days ago as well as receive the Asahina-san traveling from two days ago. Only then would this long week come to a close.

  During lunch that day, Tsuruya-san came to the classroom to look for me. It was good that Haruhi, who rarely brings a boxed lunch, had gone to the cafeteria. I put down my half-eaten boxed lunch and headed towards her as she yelled “Kyon-kun~!”

  “Let’s talk somewhere else,”

  Tsuruya-san pulled my tie and dragged me towards the staircase before stopping just next to the door leading towards the roof. Haruhi had also brought me to this dark staircase, with all sorts of arts and crafts scattered about as before.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,”

  Tsuruya-san smiled cautiously and took out a stack of photos from her pocket.

  “Kyon-kun, just how did you know there was something buried there? That totally took me by surprise, you know.”

  You actually found something? So what did you find?

  “Enough to surprise you!”

  Tsuruya-san spread out the photos in a fan shape,

  “The first surprise is, when I began digging, there really was a three-hundred-year-old pot down there coming out to say ‘hi’ to me!”

  The photo she handed to me showed a pot with cracks all over, using a white wall as a background.

  “Are you sure it’s over three-hundred years?

  “Absolutely
sure! I even took it for some radiometric dating, but it’s what’s inside that’s even more amazing!”

  The second photograph showed a crummy old piece of paper, with some words written in hiragana, but it still looked blurry to me. The only thing I could see clearly was a familiar picture of a mountain on the edge of the paper, with a small “X” written on it. No guesswork was required to figure out what the “X” was referring to in the plateau.

  “This was really written by Tsuruya Yauemon, my great-great ancestor. The letter says ‘I felt a bit uneasy after obtaining such a strange object, so I decided to bury it’, it’s dated at 15 Genroku.”

  Haruhi also mentioned something like that being written on her treasure map, but that was a copy, while this was the real thing.

  “But this Yauemon-jisan sure is absent minded, burying the letter and the treasure together. How are we supposed to find it that way?”

  Tsuruya-san smiled as she pointed to a third photo.

  “What’s this?”

  As the object was within the frames of the photo, I had no idea how large it actually was. It looked like a metallic rod about ten centimeters long. The surface was still shining so brightly it didn’t look like it had been buried for three-hundred years. Upon closer inspection, one could see lines that resembled circuit wires, spread all over like a spider web. The pattern looked irregular at first sight, yet it was elegantly symmetric. Was this really something made during the Edo period?

  “We only found the letter and this in the pot! But here comes the problem, no one would believe that our ancestors’ time capsule could contain with such a thing…”

  Tsuruya-san enthusiastically waved the photos and said,

  “Let me tell you, that thing is made of a titanium-cesium alloy!”

  Now that was truly shocking, I should find Kunikida and tell him so I could freak myself out again.

  “It’s simply impossible to find the technology on earth three-hundred years ago to make such an alloy. The guy who helped me do the testing said if this was really from hundreds of years ago, then it either has to be an artifact from some super ancient civilization, or an item that a future time-traveler left before, or else it could be the fragment of an alien spaceship!”

  …Please don’t let it be from a super ancient civilization…

  “But, doesn’t this looks like a spare part for some object?”

  Tsuruya-san studied the third photo and then smiled cheerfully towards me,

  “So what do you think, Kyon-kun? Would you pick an alien or a time traveler?”

  I was left speechless when her innocent face suddenly came up with such a question.

  “It would be better for you to decide quickly!”

  The mysterious object found inside the pot stamped with the seal of the Tsuruya clan was placed under safe-keeping at the Tsuruya residence. It was reassuring to see Tsuruya-san slapping her chest as she promised to take good care of it, but that’s to be expected. The priority is to make sure Haruhi hears nothing about this, but to be honest, I’ve got a bad feeling about it. I hope things will never turn out that way, and truth be told, I don’t want to think about it any more…

  I just have a feeling this spare part would make itself useful one day.

  I wonder if I’ve told Tsuruya-san about this too soon? Would it have been a better idea, not telling anyone as well as not digging it myself?

  But could I do it? After realizing something amazing must be buried there, could I play dumb and pretend there’s nothing there? My curiosity burns so strongly that if I see a word I don’t understand, I search the internet until I find out everything about it.

  Besides, Haruhi might have decided to go back and dig some more. So it was good for this mysterious device that it could return to the safe-keeping of Tsuruya clan. Should a day arrive when the people from the ancient civilization, time travelers, or aliens would appear to claim the device back, judging from Haruhi’s behavior, she would certainly tell them to go to hell. I never want her to see such an object, because those people would probably disguise their identities just as Asahina-san and Nagato have. Instead of traveling back to the past to keep the present intact, it’s better to do my best to take precautions against any unforeseen events in the future, since the present is where I reside, after all.

  After parting ways with Tsuruya-san and returning to the classroom, I found Haruhi munching on my boxed lunch.

  “Hey! That’s mine!”

  “Of course, I know that! I wouldn’t eat a stranger’s boxed lunch.”

  That doesn’t mean you should eat the boxed lunch of someone you know! Spit it out!

  “Let’s leave that aside for now,” Haruhi placed the chopsticks into the empty boxed lunch and shoved it over, while looking at me with a strange expression,

  “What’s with that gross expression, just what’re you grinning at?”

  Grinning? You tell me why on earth I would grin. Touching my face, I realized Haruhi was telling the truth, the muscles on my face must have been either relaxed or contorted.

  “Freak.”

  After making such a rude remark, Haruhi turned her head away. Her silky hair waved along and revealed her tiny ears.

  At this point I suddenly understood something.

  The reason why I’m unconsciously grinning. I wonder how I could still grin after going through so much this past week. Aside from having to spend time with the other Asahina-san, a new group of time-travelers and another esper organization have appeared, trying to cause all sorts of mischief like kidnapping Asahina-san. I won’t be seeing the last of them, not to mention a rival alien faction could stick their heads in as well. To add insult to injury, a mysterious device was dug up on the hill. It just isn’t the time to grin like an idiot.

  Anyone who thinks that way is a simplistic idiot, and I have no intention of becoming one. That’s right, by now I’ve realized this point, which was why I didn’t keep such an uptight expression.

  To date I’ve already experienced plenty of unfortunate events, and it will probably go on this way. However, I don’t seem to be fazed by it all; in fact, I now feel that no matter what comes my way, they could bring it on.

  Was it because I didn’t give a damn about them? The wave would be imminent, but I won’t be alone! I would have Nagato, Koizumi, and Asahina-san by my side supporting me, while Haruhi would place her hands on her waist and sit in front of me with her legs crossed, and Tsuruya-san would stand behind me laughing all the way. I don’t care whether you’re an ally, a foe, a neutral, or just have a common interest with us, so bring it on!

  I closed the lid on the boxed lunch Haruhi handed me, and covered it with a handkerchief before placing it in my bag.

  Calling me a freak, aren’t you looking just as freakish with that expression of yours? Did I really look weird just now?

  “Hey, Haruhi,”

  “What?”

  I said to Haruhi, who had wrinkles on her forehead,

  “The future of the SOS Brigade depends on you.”

  Haruhi looked stunned for a while,

  “Of course it does!”

  Her lips instantly formed a grin as she shouted,

  “I founded this brigade, after all!”

  After school, thinking that my work would be done once I had arranged for the two Asahina-sans to switch places, I had nearly forgotten about the “favor” Haruhi asked me to be ready for earlier this morning. Well, I didn’t exactly forget, it’s just that this activity was much bigger than I had expected.

  First, Haruhi said she was planning to hold a lottery using Amidakuji, with Asahina-san dressed as a miko while giving out the prize to the winner; then the drawing point of this contest turned out to be…

  “The SOS Brigade’s Belated Asahina Mikuru Handmade Valentine’s Day Chocolate Amidakuji Contest! Admission is 500 yen each!”

  When I think of Haruhi carrying her loudspeaker and making her presence known everywhere, I shudder as I am reminded of how naively stupid
I had been.

  At the Belated Asahina-san Handmade Valentine’s Day Chocolate Amidakuji Contest, the papers used for drawing lots were as long as a large scroll. Though the admission fee was a whopping 500 yen, I can imagine everyone fighting to get in the front of the line as we cheerfully watch our income grow rapidly to a five digit sum. Besides Koizumi’s and mine, it seems Asahina-san had made a third obligatory chocolate as well for this occasion. Like hell I was going to donate my chocolate cake for this god-forsaken contest anyway.

  “Actually, Nagato-san was the one who helped out in everything…”

  Dressed in a miko attire suitable for any time period if she were to travel through time, Asahina-san stood on the grass field out at the courtyard and spoke apologetically to me. Once home room session was over, Haruhi had gone and dragged Asahina-san into the club room and forced her to put on that miko costume, though I have no idea how she obtained it. Looks like Haruhi was still feeling inspired about what I had incidentally said while throwing beans during Setsubun.

  Under Haruhi’s barked orders, Koizumi and I carried the long table from the club room downstairs and placed it on the grass field outside. Haruhi then held up her loudspeaker and began to make her move, while Nagato was assigned the task of cashier.

  Very quickly, the male students began to swarm the courtyard like zombies attracted by fresh meat. The atmosphere was so surreal one can’t help, but worry about the state this country was headed to. When I saw that even Taniguchi and Kunikida were amongst the crowd, I began to worry about the future of my classmates as well.

  Using her loudspeaker, Haruhi began to organize the crowd which was largely guys with a few girls scattered around,

  “If you want to participate, line up here in front of Yuki! You’ll be handed a number card once you’ve paid your 500 yen. Once you have the card, head to Koizumi-kun, where he’ll write your number in your preferred slot as well as draw as many horizontal lines wherever you like!”

  As Nagato efficiently dealt with the queue, Koizumi had to frantically draw lots of straight lines with a ruler on the large B4 paper. It seems he would need more than one piece of paper, as it looks like he’ll be drawing hundreds of lines.