The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya (9 page)

What I needed to ask about was something else.

“So, Nagato, you know that Asahina here is from the future…” Well, that was a stupid thing to say—obviously she was from the future. “No, what I mean is, you know that this is another Asahina, who came from eight days in the future. Right?” I asked, sitting at the low living room table.

“I know.”

Nagato sat directly across from me, looking up at Asahina, who was still standing. Asahina flinched, then hurriedly sat next to me, her eyes downcast.

“Apparently Asahina herself doesn’t know why she came to this time,” I explained. “She says that I told her to come. So—do you have any idea what this is all about, Nagato?”

Even if she didn’t know, there was a high probability that she’d be able to tell me something about the future.

So when she quickly said, “I don’t know,” I wasn’t worried. So long as she would find out for me. I asked her to just do that synchronization-whatever thing.

But Nagato completely betrayed my expectations.

“I cannot. Currently, I am unable to synchronize with selves from either future or past space-time continuities.”

Before I could ask why, she continued.

“Execution prevention code was applied.”

I definitely didn’t understand that, I told her. Why?

“Because it was determined that it could cause irregularities in my autonomous functioning.”

So was it her boss that had sealed that ability? I asked.

“The Data Overmind concurred.” Something was strangely cheerful about Nagato’s expressionless face. “But it was my decision,” she said, sounding like she was reading a telegram aloud. “The release code is encrypted and held by a different humanoid interface. I cannot release the lock of my own volition. Nor do I intend to.”

Uh, so, in other words, Nagato couldn’t exchange information with her future self, nor did she have any way of knowing future events. So, obviously, she didn’t know the reason why Asahina had come from eight days in the future. So what was I supposed to do? I asked.

“You should act according to your own judgment.” I saw myself reflected tinily in her black pupils. “Just as I am doing.”

All I could do was drop my jaw. Nagato was speaking of her own volition. Had I just gotten a lecture from her?

“By losing the ability to synchronize, I have gained the right to greater autonomy. I am currently able to act according to my own judgment. I am not constrained by the future.”

Nagato was being extremely talkative, by her usual standards. What was bringing this on? I asked.

“I have determined that my responsibility of determining my future self is carried by my current self.” Nagato continued to stare at me. “Which is true of you, as well.”

She spoke very slowly.

“That is your future.”

I closed my eyes and thought.

Suppose I had the ability to predict the future and could know
exactly what actions I would take in the next eight days. Likewise, suppose I knew that whatever I did, I couldn’t change the ultimate result. So no matter what I did, I couldn’t change the future, and I would have to arrive at that result—did that then mean that I should give up trying to do anything at all?

Could it be said that the result of all that struggle was that it would all come to naught, that I shouldn’t have done anything from the start, and that if the place we arrived at was going to be the same, that everything else would
also
be the same?

Nagato must have struggled too. She knew she was going to commit an error. Trying to avoid that while knowing it would be futile must have been hard. Knowing in advance might have even been the cause, but in any case the outcome had been what it was. It was my fault. I’d noticed Nagato was changing but hadn’t done anything about it. Part of me wanted to let Haruhi take some of the blame, but this was a psychological burden only I could bear.

Last month, this Nagato had spoken to the past Nagato.

—I don’t want to
.

She didn’t want to be forced to know what to do, and she didn’t want to know herself.

Nagato had known that she would do what she had to. She had trusted herself.

I didn’t have to remind myself of this—I’d been doing it all along, hadn’t I?

I’d heard the words of my future self, then I’d gone back into the past to tell myself those same words. I hadn’t asked myself what to do, nor had I told myself what to do.

—Because I already knew that things would work out.

And things
would
work out. Because here I was.

“It will be all right.”

The sound of Nagato’s voice brought me out of my reverie. Her dark, emotionless eyes were shining.

“My highest priority remains the safety of you and Haruhi Suzumiya.”

I wished she’d included Asahina in that statement. And maybe Koizumi too. In the snowy mountain incident, he’d said some very supportive things about her, I reminded her.

Nagato nodded. “Yes, in cases of enemy interference.”

What did she mean by “enemy”? I asked.

“Macro-spatial cosmic beings unrelated to the Data Overmind. They once sealed us in a different dimension.”

Those were the bastards who were behind the snowy mountain incident.

“They exist in a far-removed”—Nagato closed her mouth as she searched for the right word—“
place
from the Data Overmind. Each knew of the existence of the other, but there was no contact, as it was decided that mutual understanding was impossible. However, they have now come to a realization.”

A realization of what? I asked.

“Of Haruhi Suzumiya.”

How can I describe the familiar feeling that came over me? Everyone and their uncle took special notice of Haruhi, watched her movements carefully, and occasionally tried to mess with her.

“So the snowy mountain disaster was their doing, eh…?”

“Yes. They put me under heavy load, making it difficult for me to avert the danger with my own abilities.”

So what had her boss been doing? I asked. Napping?

“A humanoid interface like me does not have the capability to fully understand the will of the Data Overmind.” Nagato then turned her head down two millimeters. “I could recognize it as a form of communication.”

What the hell kind of conversation was that? They’d just gone and sealed us off. That kind of approach wasn’t going to fly in the modern world, I said.

“They are utterly unlike us. It is impossible to understand their
cognitive processes. It is surmised that they are likewise unable to understand our thinking.”

So that was it, then? I really wanted to know what they thought of Haruhi, I said.

“Perfect data transfer is impossible.”

Well, obviously—if they were so stupid as to say “Hello” by sending the blizzard of the century.

“However, some communication may be possible.” Nagato straightened her neck. “If they were to construct a humanoid interface similar to myself, verbal communication, although imperfect, could take place.”

Surely there weren’t any already around here, were there? I asked.

“There may be.”

Although I didn’t especially hope they existed, I had a weird feeling like it would be stranger if they
didn’t
show up.

“Oh…” Asahina said, exhaling. “It couldn’t be…”

She seemed to have realized something and looked to Nagato, surprised. Nagato looked back at her. A bit surprised, I watched the time traveler and the alien regarding each other.

“What is it?”

“Oh, um, it’s nothing. Really, nothing…”

As I was sitting there stunned by Asahina’s suddenly confused expression, Nagato suddenly stood.

“I will make some tea,” she said, looking down at us before she turned and headed for the kitchen. Halfway there, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Or—” she started. I opened my mouth and waited for her to finish; she concluded with a simple question: “—Dinner?”

Nagato’s menu for the evening was instant canned curry. Preparation consisted of her opening the giant can, which could’ve fed a family of five, pouring its contents into a hot pot, and heating it
up—the whole process was indescribably Nagato-like. If Haruhi’d been here, I imagined that she would’ve added all kinds of superfluous ingredients, which notion I likewise found indescribable, as far as which would’ve been more delicious or more fun.

It was definitely dinnertime, though.

Asahina sat at the table and fidgeted, as Nagato had ordered her to stay. When Asahina had offered to help, Nagato had said only, “You are a guest,” and gone about the preparations herself—although that merely entailed getting a can of curry out of the cupboard and finely slicing an entire head of cabbage.

Eventually she ladled the curry over big bowls of rice. In the simplicity of the main dish there was also a kind of magnificence, and the curry was served to Asahina and me alongside large cabbage-only salads. Bowing almost apologetically, Asahina looked down to her dish, and a sweat broke out on her face as her expression stiffened, as though she were trying to gulp down the stomachache that eating such a gigantic serving of curry rice would surely bring.

Nagato sat at her own place. “Eat,” she said.

“L-let’s eat!”

I put my hands together too, since the instant I’d first smelled the curry my stomach had been growling. It was a bit unfortunate that it wasn’t homemade, but curry from a can had its own charm. The sight of Nagato wordlessly destroying her serving and Asahina politely eating her own went pretty well with the food, honestly. Although there was no conversation (had Haruhi been there, she would’ve just talked to herself), the dining milieu left nothing to be desired.

After that, once a dazed Asahina had shoveled the remaining half of her own serving of curry onto Nagato’s dish and we were drinking the after-dinner tea Nagato had brewed, I spoke up.

“That was delicious. So I guess I’ll be heading home in a second—”

“Huh? You’re not staying, Kyon?” Asahina looked at me
goggle-eyed as she daintily held her teacup, and even Nagato froze midsip and looked at me.

“No, I, uh…”

The fantasy of saying, “Sure, that’s fine,” rocketed through my mind like a Bussard ramjet–powered spacecraft. The scene flickered, then disappeared: Asahina fresh from the bath, wearing pajamas borrowed from Nagato and bashfully toweling dry her hair, Nagato herself drinking a glass of milk, her hair still steaming—my memory went back to the two futons laid out in the spare room, and then for some reason it was all interrupted by Haruhi’s face, sticking her tongue out at me in my mind’s eye as I snapped back to reality.

“I’m going home tonight. I’ll come by after school tomorrow.” I turned to the owner of the room. “Is that all right, Nagato?”

Nagato nodded.

I faced the trembling Asahina. “Just stay here until I show up. Things’ll work out, you’ll see.”

I wasn’t just trying to make her feel better. If things got really bad, Nagato could always freeze her in time again. The first time we’d done that, it had been to travel three years into the future from that first Tanabata, so a week would be a piece of cake. And I had another matter to think about. Asahina hadn’t traveled back in time for no reason, and my future self must have had a purpose in sending her back. It was weird to be saying “had” about future events, but this much was certain. The letter I still had in my pocket told me that much.

Isn’t that right, Adult Asahina?

I knew she had to be involved in this somehow.

I said my good-byes to an Asahina whose very face incited the desire to protect her and headed home in the winter night, looking up at the sky as I went.

Nagato’s confession that she’d limited her own power occupied my thoughts. It looked like Koizumi had been right on the money. The day when Nagato would become a normal high school student, a being unconnected to the Data Overmind, might not be so very far away. If it came to that, when I had a problem I’d have to get along without Nagato’s power, without giving her more responsibility. We’d be normal friends who had to face problems together.

And without Nagato’s power, I’d be a lot more confused.

But so what?

I’d never regretted what I’d done last December, when I took the world where Haruhi and Koizumi were gone and Asahina didn’t know who I was and returned it to the normal state I knew. But misgivings still remained. On my way home the night Asakura had brought stew over to Nagato’s place—

—I wanted to see that shy little smile again.

If it could somehow exist in this world, then I was all for it.

The next day, the first thing waiting for me when I arrived at school was an envelope in my shoe locker.

“I knew it.”

I quickly stuffed it into my pocket before anybody else noticed, then hurried to the bathroom after changing into my school slippers. That’s right, I was the walking cliché of the guy who opens a secret letter in a bathroom stall.

I opened the envelope and took out the folded sheets within—there were two.

The first was obviously written by her, and on it was written the following:

That was as far as I could read. At the end of the note, there were some symbols I’d never seen before, but I had no idea what they meant. I wondered if they were a signature of some kind, but
in any case the letter was completely incomprehensible, and I tilted my head in confusion.

“What kind of orders are these, anyway?”

The moment I looked at the second sheet, things only got worse.

“What the hell?”

The bizarre thing came with a diagram. Even if I flattered it by calling it “simplified,” it was well outside the range of “good.” The intersection was marked with an
x
, and the diagram beside that
x
had to be a joke.

“I don’t get any of this, Asahina.”