“Unfortunately,” said Koizumi, giving an exaggerated bow as though he were on stage, “As far as this school is concerned, it does not exist only within the world you and your comrades closed off. Feel free to look outside.”
I didn’t have to. I’d already seen the gray and sepia tones mixing together. This was a world where Haruhi’s closed space intermingled with Sasaki’s—I was forced to admit that was the only way I could describe the view that greeted me.
“That can’t be. This isn’t Suzumiya’s—” Kyoko Tachibana began, then gazed up at the void. Her body trembled like a doe sensing the footsteps of an approaching hunter. “So that girl from before… that’s what she was…?”
She spoke as though having realized something, but—what? Why did they understand something I didn’t? Why, when I was at my utmost limit just trying to resist the desire to hold my head in my hands from the total confusion of it all?
To make matters worse, I soon realized that the trials of my psychological limits were only beginning.
From behind the lanky form of the lieutenant brigade chief emerged another form, at whose appearance I felt the strength leave my body. I’m surprised I didn’t collapse on the spot. Honestly I think the only thing that stopped me from falling backward was the strength I’d naturally gained from walking up the hellish hill to school every day. I’d like to say it was the first time since starting high school that I was thankful for my commute, but I’ll reiterate that at that moment my mental capacity was maxed out with processing the visual data from my immediate surroundings, so my brain was stressed nearly to the point of explosion.
So it’s no surprise that at the appearance of that particular individual, neither my mind nor my mouth was capable of any reaction.
“Hello, Kyon.”
She wore a white blouse and tight skirt that did nothing to disguise her curvy figure. She was like the platonic ideal of the sexy teacher, and I was indebted to this beautiful woman many times over. She smiled that same tender smile I’d seen so many times before.
“… Asahina, what are you doing here…?”
It was all I could do to squeeze out that one strangled line.
The adult version of Asahina. Asahina the Elder, the grown-up version of my Asahina. The true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool time traveler emerged from behind Koizumi and stepped forward.
“I got Koizumi to bring me. Infiltrating closed space is one of his abilities, after all. You do know that, don’t you?”
I thought back to the time when Koizumi had taken my hand and brought me into the closed space that existed in the city. When it came to the freezing enclosure that was closed space, I’d experienced it once with Koizumi, and once with Haruhi.
“I really wanted to have all the cleaning tools ready before I appeared, but… time travel wouldn’t bring me here,” Asahina the Elder pouted, sticking out her tongue a bit. She was just as seductive as ever, and it threatened to turn me into Jell-O. She was no different from when I’d seen her during the Tanabata incident four years earlier, her beautiful adult body bountiful in all the right places…
While my mind was occupied with such revolving-lantern illusions, the high school esper boy/lieutenant brigade chief addressed the person next to him in a deeply satisfied tone of voice.
“I’m honored to finally meet Asahina’s true form. I’m glad you seem well. It doesn’t seem as though you’re operating under many restrictions here, so if possible I’d like to have a nice long chat.”
“That’s not necessarily true. This is the first I’ve heard of it. It was special, a top-level classified secret. As far as this operation goes, I’m just a single piece of it.”
I only recognized a small part of her statement, and understanding it seemed likely to take an infinite amount of time. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
Asahina the Elder was controlling Asahina the Younger, but was there someone above even her who was moving the pieces around on the board? What kind of person was that? Was there really a level above Asahina? An Asahina Deluxe? But no, this was no time to be thinking about that kind of thing.
“Hey, Koizumi,” I said, finally. “Which Koizumi are you?”
Koizumi lifted his arms in a familiar shrug. Overacting no matter what the circumstances was the guy’s specialty.
“I’m both. I too was fused a moment ago. If pressed, I suppose you could say I’m the α version.”
α? What kind of code was that? I asked.
“Ah, pardon me. It’s merely a convenient label. You’re in the same situation. Both of us, as members of the SOS Brigade, now have two sets of memories. One is from the version of history where we were busy with the entrance examinations for new members, and the other is the version where Nagato fell ill, throwing the the SOS Brigade into dysfunction. It occurred to me that it would be useful to be able to differentiate between the two, so I started calling the first one α, and the second β. Any objections?”
No, none. He could call ’em A, B, or N for all I cared, since either way, they were unified now.
Koizumi looked at Fujiwara, Tachibana, and Kuyoh in turn, chuckling. “It seems that your expectations have been significantly disrupted. And indeed they have. We can’t have you underestimating us. None of you yet understand Haruhi Suzumiya. Undoubtedly you’ve done your homework and prepared your countermeasures. Otherwise there’s no way you could’ve implemented a bold battle plan. But Suzumiya, our awe-inspiring brigade chief, cannot be outsmarted by a half-baked time traveler, a shabby esper, or a barely competent alien. She may not be a god. But even as only a being who happens to possess godlike power, she’s a human beyond your abilities to analyze.”
Koizumi reached into his blazer pocket and produced a fancy slip of stationery.
“This morning, I found this in my shoe locker. Shall I read it?”
I acted as the representative for everyone in the room. Read it, I told him.
“Please come to the school gate at six o’clock this evening.”
The sender name was—Yasumi Watahashi.
So Yasumi had left a letter for someone other than me. But why Koizumi?
“The β version of myself followed after you, when you headed here with Sasaki, Kyoko Tachibana, and that time traveler. Meanwhile, the α me came to the school gate as directed. There, the two versions of myself saw the same thing—good old closed space. But I hadn’t felt any premonitions of its appearance, so it was rather surprising. Then, Asahina here called out to my β self. Then just before I entered closed space with her, I met my α self alone. You know the rest. The moment we touched we became one person, and I understood everything.”
“That’s your weakness, Koizumi,” said Asahina the Elder. “Although it’s certainly true that you were necessary.”
“You must be joking!” Fujiwara’s angrily shouted words echoed in the room.
I assumed he’d lost his temper with Koizumi’s rambling explanation, but his keen, laser-scalpel gaze was aimed only at Asahina the Elder.
Fujiwara’s body shook, and the rage within him distorted his features; compared with his usual state of looking down on everyone and mocking them constantly, he was like a different person. This was the first time I’d seen him express such raw emotion.
“You’re… you’re really going to go this far in interfering with me? Are you really trying to solidify that future, even if it means splitting the world in two?”
“Even if you edit an already-fixed time plane, our future will not change. No, it must not be changed,” said Asahina, her expression pained, but resolved.
“It will change. Not because of you, or me, or anyone here. It’s impossible for us. But with the power of Haruhi Suzumiya, it’s possible. If I could use her power, I could remake everything about the space-time information I’ve lived in,” said Fujiwara. “I could completely and perfectly rewrite everything from this point on into the future. Not by individually altering time planes little by little, but by correcting every pl
ane on into infinity!”
Fujiwara stopped shouting, and looked down as though having just finished vomiting. He murmured.
“I just… I don’t want to lose you, my sister.”
It was an astonishing line. Huh? What did he say? Sister? Asahina was his sister? As in, Fujiwara’s? Which meant Fujiwara was Asahina’s younger brother… but the Asahina I knew had never given a single hint of that, or anything remotely like that. Was this some kind of once-in-a-lifetime joke from Fujiwara?
Asahina the Elder shook her head. Her chestnut hair swayed sadly. “… I don’t have… a brother. And likewise, the me who is your sister does not exist. History that’s lost… people that are lost… can never return.”
Asahina the Elder’s answer only spurred on further confusion. But Fujiwara’s expression only turned more serious. “That’s why I came here! To this time plane, where people wallow in the folly of their lives! Back to this foolish past, that we can never forget though we might wish to. I want to get you back—that’s why I joined forces with that extraterrestrial intelligence. What other reason could there be for dealing with such a—”
“Please, forget about me. You mustn’t use the TPDD for such things. We’re not beings that should be here in the first place. You must understand how important Haruhi Suzumiya is for this time plane. If it weren’t for her, our future would be…”
“I know. That’s why I bet on a second possibility. What the future needs isn’t Haruhi Suzumiya, but her power. If it could be transferred to someone else, other possibilities appear. And my ally, Kyoko Tachibana, found the perfect person.”
Kyoko Tachibana’s shoulder shook again. When I looked at her she was looking down, but then her slightly teary eyes met mine.
Little by little, I was starting to understand.
Of course. This “perfect person” was Sasaki.
“She can control it much more skillfully than Haruhi Suzumiya. It would be better for us. We’d be able to access infinite possibility. We wouldn’t be trapped by fixed events. We’d be able to erase them—we could choose our future. That’s what I want, my sister! I want to choose a future with you in it!”
He was just going on and on. I wanted to tell him he was an idiot. By now I knew perfectly well just how kind and decent Asahina the Younger was. She hadn’t been told anything. Not about the intentions of the future, nor about the usefulness of Haruhi and Sasaki.
That was a rare virtue. Who cared whether she was skilled or useful? Asahina the Younger was the most lovable time traveler I knew. She was our time plane’s only ally, because she wasn’t trying to change the past, nor was she trying to control Haruhi.
That’s right. Just think about it. If I could travel into the past and move around however I liked, I would certainly use my knowledge to interfere with history. Ten years ago, a century ago—the further back I went, the less likely it was that I would resist such a desire.
But Asahina hadn’t done anything. She came from the future just to play with Haruhi. I was only then realizing just how incredible that was. No one other than Asahina could possibly have filled that role. If Fujiwara had been in her place, I doubted the SOS Brigade would ever have been founded at all.
“No,” continued Fujiwara. “I don’t care what happens to the world. I can’t lose you.”
“The person native to your time line is not me. I do not have a younger brother.”
“It’s the same thing. The fact that you were lost in my time line means that you will be lost at the intersection point in the future.”
“The future can be changed. As you changing things can be changed.”
I wanted to compliment my ears and brain for not missing that line.
What did she say? What had Asahina said just then?
“It cannot! Your future is the past to someone beyond it. You yourself should know that fixed reality must remain unchanged—you know that perfectly well!”
“That’s why we exist.”
“But we cannot travel back past four years ago. There’s no way to correct the time plane. A rupture always appears. So we should be able to do it here.”
“That’s something I can’t allow. Do you understand what you’re saying?”
“I understand better than anyone. You’re not the only ones constantly adjusting the time plane in order to ensure the correct future. That’s right, the TPDD.”
Fujiwara kept going, as though he’d forgotten that Koizumi and I, to say nothing of Kyoko Tachibana and Kuyoh Suoh, existed.
“A double-edged sword can be useful. Time travel using the TPDD is necessary in order to maintain the normal state of the time plane. But that same travel damages the plane itself. It wasn’t simple to repair the holes in time caused by the TPDD. But while I was pursuing this, I discovered other phenomena. We cannot change the past. Nor the future.”
“So why are you here?”
“For the sake of now, this time. By accumulating instants, moments of time, we can construct time itself. We’ll bring the material of the ‘present’ into the future and continue to change it. We’ll need only to keep repairing dislocations in the time plane.”
“That’s impossible. Do you have any idea how much energy is required to destroy fixed events?”
“It can be done. I’ll say it as many times as I have to. If we have Haruhi Suzumiya’s power, it can be done.”
Kyoko Tachibana did not seem to be able to keep up with the conversation. “Um… er… just what does this…” She couldn’t erase the dazed look on her face.
Fujiwara ignored the poor girl entirely, and continued.
“I’ll rewrite all of space-time from this time plane through to the future. I don’t care about the history along the way. If we can fix space-time in our future, then we’ll have the luxury of being able to worry about the past.” His face slightly green, he gulped. “And Haruhi Suzumiya has been doing that for a long time now. Since long before we came here.”
“That’s an unforgivable act. You’re… you’re trying to commit what is a serious time crime in your time line.”
Asahina the Elder’s expression was full of sorrow, and no small measure of unmistakable desolation.
In the midst of the time travelers’ dialogue, Koizumi suddenly spoke up in a somewhat jovial tone, as though he’d utterly failed to read the room. “Sorry to interrupt the argument, but I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Asahina. I suppose this isn’t actually the first time we’ve met, but I thought I should reintroduce myself, just in case.”
“Koizumi…” Asahina the Elder forced her downcast eyes up to regard Koizumi.
“Asahina, from your perspective, we haven’t had an encounter in quite some time, correct?”
“That’s probably true.” Asahina the Elder’s face bloomed in as beatific a smile as Koizumi could ever manage. Like a witness who’d noticed a prosecutor’s leading question. “I can’t tell you anything, Koizumi. You’re a highly dangerous person, even among people of the past. There are things that even I am prohibited from doing. But no, even if it were something I could say, by my own judgment I wouldn’t. You’re simply too clever. A single careless word from me could become ten words’ worth of information for you. I’d love to reminisce with you, though. That is the truth.”
“I quite understand. Those words alone are enough for me. You’ve told me what I am, and how I’m viewed in the future. Even if that was fake, it amounts to the same thing. I’ll do my own information analysis. Above all, I should thank you, Asahina. Thanks to you coming here, I’ve understood what it is I need to do. The fact that you appeared in front of me is quite extraordinary. Which means that I’m going to face that extraordinary thing myself too. You could not face what’s going to happen alone; you must need my power. No, not only my power—Suzumiya’s power too. Am I wrong?”
“Asking questions you already know the answers to is an interesting hobby. I felt this way before, but even so… Koizumi, out of all the STC data, you truly are an irreplaceable
individual. That’s why you were invited into the SOS Brigade. You were chosen by Suzumiya.”
“I’ve become aware of that, yes. At first I only half believed it, and explained it away as the product of happenstance, but now I no longer doubt it. I am part of the SOS Brigade. As is Nagato, and your younger self. So what about you, the grown-up Asahina? What did you learn when you returned to the future? Why have you come back to this past, or are you merely here to interfere with your former self? Please, explain your position to me.”
“What if I said it was… classified information.”
“I would not be surprised. I’m sure if I went back into the past, and the inhabitants there asked me that question, I would tell them the same thing. However”—Koizumi’s keen eyes regarded Fujiwara and Asahina the Elder equally piercingly—“I would ask you not to underestimate the humans of the past. We are not so very foolish, you see. I won’t go so far as to say this applies to all humanity, but humans deeply concerned with the future certainly do exist.”
I was struck by the sight of an aggressive edge to Koizumi’s gaze that I’d never seen before.
“Little by little I’ve come to understand this, thanks to all the commotion that the various aliens have caused. Suzumiya’s ability… the ability to change reality—it’s not permanent, is it? It’s not that it weakens with use, but it’s not something that she will possess forever. Eventually it will disappear. Am I wrong?”
“Well…” Asahina said, obviously attempting to evade the question.
“It’s not as though you’re being pressed to choose. When they want to do something, they control you as they please, thereby controlling Suzumiya. The power she has can even be transferred to another. Nagato once managed to do something similar, so these aliens can surely do likewise.”
Kuyoh was standing there like a wooden statue; Koizumi shot her a contemptuous look. “It may be presumptuous of me, but there’s something I simply must say. So I shall.” He took a deep breath, and once again revealed his true thoughts. “I’d like to ask you not to underestimate the people of Earth. We’re not such stupid creatures as you might think. Regardless of what the Data Overmind or other alien intelligences might say, we’re quite clever in our own way. At the very least, there are those among us who strive for that.”
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 28
