Volume 1 - The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

by Tanigawa Nagaru

  “I’ll explain as we move along,” said Koizumi casually,

  “I’m not too sure about the details, but this is a dimension located not far from ours……Let’s put it this way, a cross-dimensional faultline just appeared right over there, and we have entered through the gap. At this moment, the outside world is still going on with its everyday life. It’s nearly impossible for normal humans to stumble upon this world by accident.”

  We crossed the street. Koizumi walked in a direction he had already decided.

  “Imagine an inverted bowl-like, egg-shaped dimension, and this place is its interior.”

  We entered a multi-story apartment complex, but not a single person could be seen, not even a speck of dust.

  “Sealed Realities occur randomly. Sometimes it appears once every other day, and sometimes it appears once every several months. Yet, one thing’s for sure…”

  We climbed up the stairs though it was dark inside. If I hadn’t been following Koizumi closely, I would’ve tripped.

  “Whenever Suzumiya-san is in a mentally unstable condition, this space will appear.”

  We arrived at the rooftop of the apartment block.

  “Once a Sealed Reality appears, I will be able to sense it; so too can my companions. How do we know that? Frankly, even we don’t know how. In any case, we just know when and where a Sealed Reality will appear, and how to penetrate it. I can’t describe this feeling in words.”

  I held the rooftop fence and looked towards the sky; no breeze could be felt.

  “You brought me here to see this? There’s hardly anyone here!”

  “No, the real thing comes after this. It’s about to start.”

  Quit joking around! But Koizumi pretended not to notice my unpleasant expression.

  “My abilities are merely to detect Sealed Realities and penetrate them. To be honest, I can even detect Suzumiya-san’s state of mind. This world is like a blister created from the tremors of Suzumiya-san’s unstable emotional state, and I am the medicine designed to cure the blisters.”

  “Your comparison sure is hard to understand.”

  “People often tell me that. Anyway, you’re pretty amazing! You don’t seem freaked out at all by the sight of all this.”

  At this moment, images of Asakura vanishing without a trace and a grown-up version of Asahina flashed before my mind: I’ve had way too many of such experiences already.

  Suddenly, Koizumi lifted his head and glanced afar.

  “Seems like it’s begun. Turn around and look behind you.”

  I saw it.

  Standing between the tall buildings in the distance was a glowing blue giant.

  It was taller than a 30-story building by a head’s length. Its slim, deep blue shaded figure seemed to contain some sort of material which allowed it to glow from within. Since it was too dark, I could not perceive its outline, and besides the eyes and mouth, which seemed a bit darker, its face didn’t seem to have any other features.

  What on earth is that?

  The giant slowly lifted its arm and then swung it down like an axe.

  The building beside it was smashed in half; then as if in slow-motion, the concrete, wires, and debris made a deafening noise falling to the ground.

  “We believe this to be the manifestation of Suzumiya-san’s frustration. Every time her inner conflict reaches a certain limit, this giant will appear and destroy everything around it to relieve pressure, but we cannot allow this thing to have its way in our reality, or it’ll cause widespread destruction. That is why this Sealed Reality is created, so that it can wreak its destruction inside. Does that make sense?”

  Every time the glowing blue giant waved its arms, the buildings would be sliced in half and collapse. The giant would then continue forwards, stepping on the debris. Surprisingly, I could only hear the sound of the buildings collapsing, but not the footsteps of the giant.

  “According to the laws of physics, it should be impossible for a giant like him to be able to stand, due to its weight. Yet he is able to move around freely in a weightless condition. Though destroying a building involves a change in molecular structure, these rules don’t seem to apply to him. Not even an army would be able to stop him.”

  “So we just let him have his way?”

  “No, and this is why I exist. Please look over there.”

  Koizumi pointed towards the giant. I watched where he was pointing and noticed a few glowing red dots that weren’t around before, now flying around the giant. Compared to the large blue giant, the red dots were like sesame seeds. There were five of them in total, but because they were flying so fast, my eyes couldn’t catch up with them. Like satellites, the red dots orbited around the giant as though trying to stop the giant from moving further ahead.

  “Those are my companions, who, like me, have obtained their powers from Suzumiya-san, warriors in charge of hunting down these giants.”

  The red dots skillfully dodged the giant’s arm attacks while changing their flight path swiftly and attacked the giant’s body. The giant’s body seemed to be made of gas since the red dots simply flew through it.

  However, the giant seemed oblivious to the red dots’ attacks and raised its arm again to smash another department store building.

  No matter how the red dots attacked, the giant didn’t seem to be stopping. Red laser-like beams now penetrated the giant’s body nonstop, but as I was too far away, I could not figure out the extent of damage it had sustained. One thing was for certain: the red beams didn’t create any holes in the giant’s body.

  “Right, I think I should join them now.”

  Koizumi’s body started to glow red, and soon, his glowing body was covered in a red glowing sphere. Standing before me was no longer a human, but a large glowing ball.

  This is getting ridiculous.

  As if making a signal, the glowing sphere started to rise and then flew straight towards the giant at an incredible speed.

  Since the red spheres never stopped flying, I couldn’t figure out how many there were in total, but there shouldn’t have been more than ten, including Koizumi. They bravely flew towards the giant’s body, but all they could do was fly through it. The giant was barely, if even, hurt. As I was thinking that way, one of the red spheres suddenly approached the giant’s wrist and circled it.

  The next moment, the giant’s hand was sliced off. The masterless hand fell towards the ground and gave out a mosaic glow, started to become transparent, and then disintegrated like snow melting under the sun. I guess the blue smoke coming out of the giant’s severed wrist must have been its blood. The scene ahead was truly the stuff of fantasy.

  The red dots seemed to have changed their attacking style of charging towards the giant. They approached the giant like a bunch of fleas surrounding a dog. The red beams sliced through the giant’s face, and its head came falling down; after that, its shoulder fell as well, followed by its upper torso, leaving behind a strange shape. The falling bits began to give out the characteristic mosaic glow, then disintegrated and vanished.

  As the giant was standing in a large piece of land without any obstacles around, I was able to see the whole process from beginning to end. When the giant’s upper torso fell off, its remaining body also began to disintegrate, finally dissolving into beads smaller than dust and spreading over the debris.

  Once the red dots floating above made sure their work was done, they started flying off in all directions. Most of them disappeared at once; only one flew towards me, finally landing at the rooftop of the apartment complex. The red sphere slowly lost its glow, and finally Koizumi stood before me, waving his hair pretentiously with his usual smile.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  He sounded very calm, and he didn’t sound exhausted at all.

  “Finally, I’d like to show you something interesting.”

  Koizumi pointed towards the sky. I half-suspiciously raised my head, and in the gloomy grey skies, I saw it!

  Right above w
here the giant first appeared was a crack, like that of a hatching bird trying to break through its eggshell. The crack began to spread rapidly like a spider web.

  “Following the blue creature’s destruction, the Sealed Reality will also be destroyed. It’s like a magic show!”

  As Koizumi finished his explanation, the large cracks now covered the world ahead, like being covered in a metallic net. The net margins started to narrow until they became as small as black curvy lines. Then, at this moment, crack!

  Actually, I didn’t really hear any sound. It was just my brain trying to simulate the sound of glass cracking. A light penetrated from a spot in the sky, and then spread out in all directions in a sphere. I felt the light shower downwards. No, that’s not the right wording: it was more like the opening of the retractable roof of the Tokyo Dome stadium, all within a few seconds. The difference is that this roof covered all the buildings under it.

  A loud bustling noise started to rumble in my eardrums, and I covered my ears instinctively. But that was because I’d stayed in a world of silence for quite some time and couldn’t adapt quickly. When I listened carefully again, it was the usual bustling noise in the streets.

  The world reverted back to its original state.

  There were no collapsed buildings, no grey skies, and no glowing red spheres flying through the air. The road was full of vehicles and people. A familiar orange glow could be seen through the gaps between the buildings. The world seemed grateful at the reception of such warmth and left long shadows behind.

  The breeze blew softly.

  “Now do you understand?”

  Koizumi asked me as we boarded the taxi, which seemed to magically stop before us after we left the apartment block. When I looked, I realized it was the same driver as before.

  “I don’t get it.” I answered truthfully.

  “I’d knew you’d say that.” Koizumi laughed, “Those blue creatures, we call them Avatars, but, as I’ve told you before, they are greatly related to Suzumiya-san’s mental condition. We’re the same, of course. Once a Sealed Reality appears, once the Avatars begin their movement, we’ll be able to use our powers. We can only use those powers within the Sealed Reality; right now, I’m powerless.”

  I silently glanced at the driver’s back.

  “I don’t know why it’s just us who have such powers, but I think it has nothing to do with our identities. It’s like winning the lottery: even though the chances may be low, there’s bound to be someone winning. I just happened to be the one to be stabbed by the random spear.”

  “How unlucky I am!” Koizumi smiled forcefully. I remained silent because I didn’t know what I should have said.

  “We cannot allow the Avatars to move freely. Why is that? Because the more these Avatars damage, the larger the sphere of the Sealed Reality will grow. The one you just saw was a smaller one. If we leave them unattended, they will continue to grow until they cover the whole nation, even the whole world, and finally, that alternate grey world will completely replace the world we’re living in.”

  I finally open my mouth.

  “How come you know so much?”

  “I told you, I just know, it can’t be explained. Everyone associated with the ‘Organization’ is the same. One day they just suddenly knew everything about Suzumiya-san and how she could affect this world, as well as realizing that since they now had supernatural powers, they couldn’t just allow these Sealed Realities to continue untouched. When normal people learn of this kind of thing, they would normally want to see if they can be of any help. If we hadn’t done anything about it, the world as we know it would have been destroyed.”

  “And that’d be troublesome.” Koizumi fell silent after mumbling these words.

  Before I reached home, we just quietly watched the view outside the window.

  The car stopped, and as I was stepping out, he spoke again,

  “Please pay attention to Suzumiya-san’s actions. Her supposedly stable mental state has now begun to show signs of rapid change. It’s been quite a while since something like today has happened.”

  Even if I did observe, she had still become like that, isn’t that so?

  “Frankly, I don’t know either. But I find it to be a good idea to leave everything to you, since some of my companions tend to think about things in a much too complex way.”

  Before I could reply, Koizumi stuck his head back inside the open door and shut it. As I watched the legendary phantom taxi drive off into the distance, I suddenly felt very stupid, so I started to stride back home.

  Chapter 7

  A self-proclaimed android created by aliens. A self-proclaimed girl who leapt through time. A self-proclaimed squad of young espers. All three them have shown me proof of their identities, so I may remove the ‘self-proclaimed’ from their titles. They revolve around Haruhi for three different reasons. Honestly, it’s not too bad at all. No, it is bad. Because I still can’t understand one thing.

  Why me?

  Koizumi said the reason aliens, time travelers, and espers all gather around Haruhi is because she wished for it.

  Then, what about me?

  Why am I involved in all of this? I’m just a human being. One hundred percent normal. I don’t have any sudden memories of a strange past life, or any unspeakable powers. Just a superbly normal high school student!

  Who on earth wrote the script for this story anyway?

  Or has someone drugged me and caused me to hallucinate all of this? Or maybe I’ve been struck by a toxic electric wave? Who the hell got me stuck in all this?

  Is it you, Haruhi?

  Just kidding.

  I don’t really know anything.

  Why am I so troubled? It seems all the answers rest with Haruhi. She should be the one worrying. Why do I have to be frustrated for her as well? This doesn’t make sense! I’ve decided so! If things are as Nagato, Koizumi and Asahina-san say, then you guys should just tell Haruhi herself! Whatever becomes of the world then, that’s her responsibility; I have nothing to do with it.

  Just put her on your merry-go-round! Leave me out of this!

  As the days counted down to summer, I walked sweatily up the slope, wiping my sweat off with my jacket, while pulling my tie and opening my third shirt button. It was already this hot in the morning, and it would become hellish by noon. As I was gritting my teeth and walking on the slope to school, someone slapped my shoulder. As I yelled “Don’t touch me! It’s hot!” and turned around, Taniguchi’s face came into view.

  “Yo!”

  Taniguchi, walking side by side with me now, was also in a sweat. “How annoying, my well-prepared hairdo is ruined by all this sweat.” Though he said that, he still looked so cheerful.

  “Say, Taniguchi,” I cut in as Taniguchi went on bragging nonsensically about how his dog was doing, “I’m a normal high schooler, right?”

  “What?”

  Taniguchi gave a laugh as though he’d heard a very funny joke.

  “Maybe you should define what ‘normal’ is. Otherwise this conversation won’t make sense.”

  “Really?”

  I regretted having asked him that question.

  “Just kidding! You, normal? I don’t think a normal high schooler would push down a girl in an empty classroom!”

  Of course, Taniguchi wouldn’t forget such things.

  “I’m a guy as well, so I know my limits. Your secret is safe with me, you get what I mean?”

  I didn’t get it at all.

  “When did you and she have such a relationship? Nagato Yuki is what I would grade as an A-!”

  So, Nagato is an A- by his grading. I tried to explain to Taniguchi,

  “That’s because…”

  I suppose Taniguchi’s mind right now is full of unrealistic desires and fantasies. So, I decided to use the following explanation.

  Poor Nagato is the victim of Haruhi’s unreasonable occupation of the Literature Club room. She was very troubled at not being able to hold activities for
her own club, so she came to me for help. She asked me if there was any way to make Haruhi give up the Literature Club room and go somewhere else. I was moved by her sincerity, so I decided to help the poor girl, and discussed it with her in a place where Haruhi wouldn’t find out about it. As we talked about what to do in the classroom after Haruhi had left, Nagato fainted as a result of her anemia. I managed to catch her before she fell to the floor, and then you came barging in. It’s really nothing!

  “Yeah right!”

  He even kicked me after saying that. Damn it! It took me a long time to come up with such a perfect cover story! I can’t believe I couldn’t fool him!

  “Let’s say I believe that bullshit; I still don’t think you’re normal. You actually managed to have the nearly unsociable Nagato Yuki come to you for help, and that’s really something.”

  “Please, is Nagato really that famous?”

  “Besides, you’re Suzumiya’s subordinate. If you’re a normal high schooler, then I’m as normal as a flea.”

  Then I asked, “Taniguchi, do you have any superpowers?”

  “Wha-?”

  12 The practice of standing in the street and picking up girls, mostly common with younger people (high school and early college age). Men who do this all the time are called by the same term, and are sometimes considered somewhat weird.

  The already foolish look on his face went up a notch. He looked like a nanpa[12], the kind young schoolgirls have to be careful of.

  He said, “I see, so even you aren’t immune to Suzumiya’s toxins… Though we don’t spend a lot of time together, you really are a nice person. So please try not to stick too close to me; I don’t want to be infected with Suzumiya’s virus as well.”

  I punched Taniguchi softly, causing him to laugh uncontrollably. Ha, if this guy’s an esper, then from today, I’m the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

  As I reached the stairs leading to the school entrance, I was sort of grateful to Taniguchi for having a conversation with me, as the heat had cooled down after talking to him.