The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 page)

“Whatcha whispering about?”

Tsuruya wrapped her flexible arm around Asahina’s neck.

“Mikuru sure is cute. I’d love to keep her at my place. Kyon, are you guys getting along?”

Absolutely.

Taniguchi and Kunikida, the hack combo, were admiring Asahina, who had her mouth half open. Don’t stare. What if you damage her looks? That was when Haruhi shouted.

“We’ve decided on a place!”

“For what?”

“Filming.”

Oh, yeah. I’d almost forgotten that we were shooting a movie here. Actually, I want to forget. It feels more like we’re producing a cheap idol DVD, oddly enough.

“There’s a large pond near Koizumi’s house. We’ll start filming there today!”

Haruhi was already out in front, carrying a vinyl flag with the words
Film Crew
written on it and leading the way.

I called over Taniguchi and Kunikida, who were still staring inappropriately at Asahina, and we shared the bags and packs among us.

After thirty minutes of walking, we reached the bank of the pond. It was located within some hills in approximately the center of the residential district. It was pretty big for a pond. Big enough for migratory birds to drop by during winter, and according to Koizumi, it was the time of year when ducks and geese started showing up.

There was a metal fence surrounding the pond area, barring entry. There was an issue of common sense first, though. Or maybe a problem with how kids are being raised. Either way, you’re not going to find grade-schoolers playing around in a place like this these days, unless they’re really dumb.

“What are you doing? Hurry up and jump over.”

I’d forgotten that this girl was, in fact, really dumb. Haruhi the director had her foot on the fence and was beckoning to the rest of us. Asahina had a look of despair on her face as she held down her short skirt. Tsuruya was cackling next to her.

“What? What are we doing here? Wa-ha-ha! Is Mikuru going to swim?”

With a shake of her head, Asahina eyed the green surface as though if it were a lake of blood. Sigh.

“The fence is a tad high to climb. Don’t you agree?”

Koizumi was talking to Nagato, not me. It was pretty futile to try to hold a conversation with her. She either gave you a simple yes or no or went into a long spiel nobody could understand.

“…”

However, while Nagato remained silent, she showed a curious reaction. She put her fingers on a metal pole supporting the fence and pulled it to the side. What was supposed to be an iron pole bent as easily as caramel under a burning sun, and eventually came to a rest in a bent state.

As skillful as always. I quickly turned to look at the other people, though it was probably unnecessary.

“Huh, it must be old,” Kunikida said with a knowledgeable look on his face.

“So what am I supposed to do? Am I a kappa?” Taniguchi muttered to himself as he squeezed through an opening in the fence and headed to the bank of the pond.

“I live in the area. There didn’t used to be a fence here. I spent a lot of time here.”

Tsuruya followed, leading Asahina by the hand, looking very reluctant, toward the edge of the pond where Haruhi was waiting.

The three extras weren’t concerning themselves with any small details. That’s a big help.

Koizumi smiled equally at both Nagato and me before he slipped through the fence. Nagato, looking like a black mage, passed in front of me like a ghost.

Not like I have a choice. I just have to get this filming over with and get out of here. Before anybody starts asking any questions about destruction of public property.

Asahina and Nagato stood facing each other again. Looks like another battle scene. Is Haruhi actually trying to come up with a story here? When is Koizumi going to make an appearance? Koizumi, in his uniform, was once again standing behind me on lighting duty.

After placing her director’s chair on the muddy ground, Haruhi began furiously scribbling what I would assume was the dialogue in a sketchbook.

“In this scene, Mikuru finally finds herself in a dire situation. Because her blue eye beam has been sealed by Yuki.”

The felt pen came to a halt as she looked up with a self-satisfied look on her face.

“Yeah, that sounds good. You there. Hold this up while standing.”

And just like that, Taniguchi was on cue-card duty. The two actresses looked to the hands of the sulking Taniguchi.

“Th-th-this won’t be enough to discourage me! E-e-evil alien Yuki! Quietly leave Earth at once… Um… I’m sorry.”

In response to Mikuru Asahina’s unexpected apology, the evil alien mage Yuki Nagato opened her mouth.

“… I see.”

She nodded without any sign that she had taken offense. She then read her lines in a deadpan voice per Haruhi’s instructions.

“You should be the one to vanish from this time. He will fall into our hands. That is how much he is worth. He has yet to realize his own power, but it is a valuable thing. Consequently, we will start by invading Earth.”

Haruhi waved her megaphone around like a conductor, and Nagato pointed the star-tipped antenna at Asahina’s face in a similar motion.

“I-I-I won’t let you have your way! Even if it costs me my life!”

“Then we shall take your life.”

Asahina shook noticeably in response to Nagato’s flat words.

“Cut!” yelled Haruhi as she stood up. She ran over between the two of them.

“You’re starting to get the feel of it. Yep, that’s the spirit. But no ad-libbing, okay? And Mikuru, come over here.”

The director and leading actress turned their backs on the rest of us. I lowered the video camera and stretched out my neck. I wondered what they were discussing.

After about a second, Tsuruya was no longer able to hold herself back and began cackling in a loud voice.

“What’s this movie about? Or is it even a movie? Wa-ha-ha. It’s absolutely hysterical!”

Except the only other person able to enjoy this movie besides you would be Haruhi.

Taniguchi and Kunikida were lounging around with looks on their faces that said,
Why were we called here?
Nagato was playing dumb by herself. Koizumi was gazing across the pond as though he’d become one with nature. I removed the almost-filled tape and unwrapped a new DV cassette. It felt like I was just creating more garbage.

Tsuruya was looking at my hands with great interest.

“Hmm. This is what videos look like these days? A bunch of Mikuru pictures are on here? Can you show me later? It’ll probably be great for laughs.”

It’s not a laughing matter. Passing out flyers in a bunny-girl outfit had been a one-day affair, but this stupid filming could potentially go on until the day before the cultural festival. Asahina could go from refusing to stand in front of a camera to refusing to go to school. That would hurt me the hardest. Since I would no longer be able to drink her marvelous tea. Nagato’s tea has no taste, and Haruhi’s is bad on a fundamental level. Koizumi’s is out of the question. If I end up in a situation where I have to make my own tea, I’d rather drink tap water.

“Sorry for the wait!”

Yeah, you kept us waiting. Waiting and waiting. About time to go home, I’d say. We wouldn’t want to trample too much pondside foliage.

“We’re just getting to the good stuff. Here, look at this!”

Haruhi shoved Asahina out in front with a push. Look, you say? Don’t need you to tell me that. I stare at her every day. See, it’s the usual, same beautiful, adorable, and fair Asahina…

“Ah?”

One of her eyes was a different color. The right eye this time. A silver eye looked apologetically between the ground and me.

“Come on, Mikuru. Use that Miracle Mikuru Eye-R to fire something, anything fantastic, and attack!”

I didn’t even have time to tell her to stop. Even if there had been enough time, I would still have gotten sliced and diced. At any rate, it was all too sudden. Haruhi delivering the dangerous command, Asahina blinking in surprise, and also—

The dark figure of Nagato pushing down Asahina by the pond.

A re-creation of the scene from yesterday. It was like watching a replay. Nagato had used her special teleportation again.

In an instant only her hat remained where she had been standing, and it softly floated to the ground. The person who had been wearing that hat had, in the blink of an eye (probably around 0.2 seconds), traveled a number of meters to ride Asahina. Iron claw to the temples.

Everyone watched dumbfounded as the two actresses began wrestling on the damp ground.

“Na-Na-Nagato… Hee!”

The wordless and expressionless Nagato paid her screaming no heed and straddled Asahina with just a slight ruffle of her short hair.

“Hey!” Haruhi quickly recovered.

“Yuki! You’re a mage! You’re supposed to be bad at physical combat! This isn’t the time to be mud wrestling—”

However, Haruhi shut her mouth mid-sentence and spent three seconds thinking.

“Well, this works too. Since it’ll probably sell. Kyon! Make sure you’re filming! Let’s not waste Yuki’s idea.”

This isn’t by design. She’s reacting to the situation. Some kind of defensive measure to deal with the contact lens. I’m sure Asahina understands that, but she’s so scared that all she can do is cry out softly and kick her legs. Tantalizing. No, I mean, now’s not the time to be aiming for a fan-service shot.

That was when a rattle made everyone besides those two look behind us.

The fence around the pond that Haruhi had climbed and the rest of us had squeezed through. The space it had occupied was now empty. The fence, cut in a V-shape, was now lying on the road, as though it had been hit by an invisible laser.

After a moment, I looked back to find Nagato biting into Asahina’s wrist like an anemic vampire.

“I was careless.”

Surprisingly, Nagato was criticizing herself.

“The laser was configured to disperse and become harmless. This time, it was a hyper-oscillatory particle cutter,” she murmured in a tone that suggested she wasn’t breathing.

Koizumi, picking up the black hat and offering it to her, opened his mouth. “Something like monofilament, I presume. But if the particle cutter isn’t visible to the eye, it must have no mass?”

Nagato took the hat and casually put it on her head.

“I perceived a trace amount of mass. Approximately equivalent to one over ten to the forty-first power grams.”

“Less than a neutrino?”

Nagato remained silent as she stared into Asahina’s eyes. The waitress’s right eye was still silver.

“Um…”

Asahina wiggled around as she rubbed her bitten wrist.

“What did you, um, inject into me this, this time…?”

The tip of the pointy hat moved about five millimeters. I took that as a sign of confusion. She must have been fretting over how to word her response. And just as expected, Nagato responded.

“A force field was established on the surface with the ability to phase-shift dimensional oscillatory cycles and transform them into gravitational waves.”

She delivered that baffling sentence in a strained voice. I had no idea how that would eliminate the killer wire, but for some reason beyond my comprehension the other two people appeared to accept the explanation. Koizumi was saying irrelevant things like “I see. Incidentally, gravity manifests itself in waves?” Nagato probably also thought his question was irrelevant. Since she didn’t give him an answer.

Koizumi shrugged like it was some kind of signature pose.

“However, we certainly were careless. This was also my responsibility. I was only expecting laser beams to shoot from her eyes.
Fire something, anything fantastic,
were her words I believe. It seems other people aren’t allowed to follow Suzumiya’s train of thought. She’s an amazing person.”

Follow her train of thought? More like she’s already lapped the rest of humanity multiple times. A whole three laps even. And you can feel the pressure as she creeps up from behind. It’s so intense that at first glance, a person in the stands might be confused and assume you were on the same lap. That’s something only people racing on the circuit would know, and Haruhi isn’t going to ease on the pedal, be it an S-curve, a Degner curve, or a crisscrossing one. And on top of all that, she’s the only one with a Bussard ramjet engine, which allows her keep going forever. She’s set up the rules so that nobody could keep up with her, even if they wanted to. And she has no idea that this whole thing is fixed. When matters are this serious, you can’t just laugh it all off because she happens to be clueless.

“Well, fortunately,” said Koizumi, “everyone appears to have accepted that the fence had deteriorated due to poor maintenance by the local government. I’m glad the matter didn’t get out of hand.”

I glanced at the pale face hidden under the hat. Yuki’d shown us her palm, which looked like it’d been sliced up by a whirlwind. A picture gruesome enough to scare people who can’t stand pain. Except it was healing so fast, it was as if it’d never happened.

I looked over at the second group, standing some distance away. Haruhi and the haphazard trio of extras were watching the video on the camera and shouting in a melodic voice… or that was just Tsuruya.

“What do we do?” I asked. “I feel like there’s going to be a disaster if we keep filming.”

“However, we cannot simply call off the movie,” Koizumi replied. “What do you think will happen if we force Suzumiya to stop filming this movie?”

“She’ll probably go berserk.”

“Most assuredly. Even if she didn’t personally go around wreaking havoc, we can rest assured that Celestials would be rampaging within closed space.”

Don’t remind me. I never want to go there again. I never want to do that again.

“Most likely, Suzumiya is having too much fun in the current situation. She’s able to freely engage her imagination and create her own movie. Almost like playing God. As you already know, she is usually irritated by how reality doesn’t work the way she desires. That’s actually not true, but since she hasn’t realized it, the result is the same. However, in this movie, the story progresses according to her wishes. Anything is possible. Suzumiya is using this movie as a medium to reconstruct a world.”