The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (6 page)

“I w-w-won’t let that happen! Not on my l-l-life!”

“Very well. I will take that life.”

Yuki did not have her cat with her this time. Instead, she had three other companions, who from their uniforms appeared to be high school students—an energetic-looking girl and two puzzled boys.

Mikuru seemed to know the long-haired girl, at least.

“Oh, um, Tsuruya! Not… not you too! Come b-back to your senses!”

“How am I supposed to come to any senses at all with you dressed like that?”

Tsuruya replied immediately, her acting slipping for just a moment. She curled her lip maliciously and continued.

“Sorry, Mikuru. I don’t want to do this, but I’m being controlled. Sorry, really!”

“Eek!”

“Now prepare yourself!”

Tsuruya and the two others approached Mikuru in an entirely nonthreatening fashion.

Behind them, Yuki waved her wand as though giving commands. Whether it was psychic emissions or electromagnetic radiation, something seemed to be emanating from the wand and robbing Tsuruya and the two others of their volition, turning them into puppets to be controlled.

Yuki Nagato was a force to be reckoned with. Such a cowardly attack! How could Mikuru fight back against this? Mikuru, whatever shall you do?

“Eek! Eeeee—!”

Nothing, apparently.

The pitiful girl found herself grabbed by the arms and legs by Tsuruya and the two boys and tossed into the brackish green water of the pond. One of the boys—the more clownish-looking one—seemed to stumble, and he took a dive from the edge of the pond as well. Not that it mattered. He’d probably haul himself out.

“Eek! Blug… gah!”

Evidently the pond was deep enough that Mikuru’s feet didn’t reach the bottom. Panicked, she beat at the water frantically, but in her urgency she was hardly making any progress at all. Before long, she’d be fish food. She couldn’t swim—or at least, she’d been told she couldn’t swim, so all she could do was flail in the water. Mikuru Asahina was in a pinch.

But there was someone who could save our heroine.

“What happened?”

Along came the dashing, gallant Itsuki Koizumi to the rescue. Kneeling down at the edge of the pond, he extended his hand to the convincingly drowning Mikuru in a manner that can only be described as “comic-book-like.”

“Grab hold—but be careful. Don’t pull me in with you.”

Just where had Itsuki been all this time? The pond was surrounded by flat ground—there was nowhere to hide, and yet from his timing, he must have been watching all along. Even more strangely, the wand-waving Yuki, along with her three zombified flunkies, had disappeared. She had been on the cusp of victory—where had she gone?

“Are you all right?”

“… Oooh… So cold…”

After being dragged out by Itsuki, Mikuru coughed, crawling on all fours.

“What were you doing in a place like that?” asked Itsuki.

Mikuru did not immediately answer, simply staring blankly at him, but eventually she seemed to remember her line.

“Um, uh… some bad people, they… um…”

A voice sounded from offscreen, and Mikuru suddenly moaned and collapsed. Yes, the script says she faints.

“Get a hold of yourself!”

Itsuki tried to pick up Mikuru, but she went limp in his arms.

Normally at times like these, you would think the person in
Itsuki’s role would call an ambulance or get help from a bystander, but Itsuki—that cad!—just lifted Mikuru onto his back and started walking off somewhere.
Just where in the hell are you taking that beautiful, helpless girl?
you might want to call out, but his stride did not waver.

He walked off, as purposefully as though he himself was being remotely controlled by mind-altering waves.

But to where?

To a house, it turned out. His.

Despite the omission of scene-setting details, based on the spacious, traditional-style bedroom Itsuki laid Mikuru down in, we can infer that his house is a large one indeed, and built in the Japanese style.

Notably, Itsuki had committed the outrage of carrying the now-T-shirt-clad Mikuru in his arms, and Mikuru looked unavoidably as though she had just bathed.

As it’s quite impossible to imagine just how an unconscious person is supposed to be able to bathe themselves, doubts cannot help but surface in one’s mind about what else this scoundrel may have done to her while his hands were washing her body, and such doubts would immediately turn to rage, which in turn might become murderous intent—and there’s that murderous intent, right on schedule.

Itsuki should be less worried about Yuki and more worried about how he’s going to protect himself from half the school’s student population.

Taking an unconscious, half-drowned girl to his own bedroom was crime enough, but to give her a bath transcended mere criminality and was a fundamentally evil act, and there could be no complaint upon the summary execution of the person—Itsuki—responsible. Please, someone punish this man.

In any case, Itsuki placed Mikuru on a futon that had suddenly appeared, then sat down cross-legged beside her. He folded his arms and appeared to be deep in thought. But I’d wager he wasn’t thinking a damned thing. Any takers?

As proof, upon hearing directions from someone offscreen, he leaned over Mikuru. If that bastard Koizumi—I mean, Itsuki—had moved so much as one centimeter farther, someone who wasn’t supposed to be there was going to have to break the fourth wall and kick the crap out of him, but fortunately he was interrupted by someone else, whose appearance was less surprising.

“Wait.”

It was Yuki Nagato, coming in through the window and looking like some kind of half-baked grim reaper’s apprentice. I forgot to mention that this was on the second floor. That may lead you to wonder where she was standing this entire time. Please just suspend your disbelief.

Yuki—who was maybe more of a black-clad angel in mourning than a pseudo-reaper—clambered through the window, then stood.

“Itsuki Koizumi. You should not choose her. Your power will only become effective at my side.”

Yuki spoke flatly, regarding Itsuki with dark, ever-calm eyes.

Itsuki being Itsuki, he showed no alarm at a girl climbing into his room through a second-story window.

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

His reply was awfully straight, his face serious.

“I cannot explain now. But you will understand soon enough. You have two choices. You can join me and help advance the universe toward its ideal form, or you may side with her and snuff out the possibilities of the future.”

As I recall, perhaps a third of this line was ad-libbed by Yuki. Was it really meant only for Itsuki, I wonder?

We’ll set aside for a moment the implication of Nagato’s—I
mean, Yuki’s—words. Itsuki’s face looked troubled as he contemplated.

“I see. So either way, he… or, in this scene, it would be me, I am the key, am I not? And the key itself has no power. At best, a key can only open a door. When that door is opened, something will change. The thing that will change is…”

Itsuki paused for a moment and for some reason looked directly at the camera. Just who the hell was he looking at, and what the hell was he trying to say?

“I understand, Yuki. But as I am now, I do not have the right to decide. I think it is too early to draw any conclusions. Shall we table this matter, then? We still need time to consider. Of course, if you’re willing to divulge everything, then that’s a different matter.”

“That time will come soon. But it is not yet upon us, that is certain. We customarily view a lack of information as a flaw. We do not act without certainty.”

It was an opaque conversation, but there seemed to be a kind of incomprehensible understanding developing between Itsuki and Yuki.

Yuki nodded slowly, and after glancing at Mikuru’s flushed face, clambered out the window and disappeared. She didn’t fall from the second floor, though; she was just standing on the eaves, but in any case, you couldn’t see her anymore.

Itsuki resumed his thoughtful expression and looked back at the sleeping Mikuru.

When Mikuru awakes, will she comprehend the particulars of her situation and, enraged, throw whatever’s handy at Itsuki? All alone with a boy, unconscious, wearing nothing but a T-shirt—it’s not unreasonable that she’d conclude that something had happened to her and blame Itsuki, right? I’d like very much for that to happen.

But instead of fulfilling any such expectations, it’s time for
another commercial break. Please enjoy our two leading ladies delivering a promotion for Yamachi Model Shop.

…

After the commercial, the story hit a turning point. The combat-themed plot thus far was completely and inexplicably eclipsed by a romantic comedy.

Mikuru seemed to have moved in with Itsuki, and the resulting cheesy cohabitation story was so terrible you want to pass out rather than endure the embarrassment of watching it anymore.

Here was Mikuru cheerfully offering Itsuki her terrible cooking, and there she was blushing furiously and making a big fuss over accidentally brushing his finger while seeing him off to school from the house’s front door, and now she was doing the cleaning and laundry, and finally she happily greeted Itsuki as he arrived home from school.

It was enough to make me want to scream, “Oh God, please stop this,” but such pleas were likely to fall upon deaf ears, as Itsuki and Mikuru’s touching love story dragged on for an eternity. Hey, Koizumi—want to trade places?

Incidentally, Itsuki Koizumi lived with his younger sister, it turned out, so a ten-year-old fifth grader was hauled in—sorry, her birthday was last month, so I guess she was eleven. Anyway, now she was fooling around with Itsuki and Mikuru on-screen in yet another scene that makes the fate of the story quite a mystery. What was the point of giving Itsuki a sister, anyway?

Amidst all of this, the incomprehensible battle between Mikuru and Yuki over Itsuki’s fate had now moved to Itsuki’s school.

Shockingly, Yuki transferred to Itsuki’s high school. Why we’re using such sluggish filler material, I have no idea, but in any event, Yuki abandoned her black robes and pursued a more indirect method of pursuing her target, cleverly attempting to
push Mikuru aside while becoming closer to Itsuki. She left no psychological attack untested—she left love letters in his shoe locker, brought two box lunches and forced one on him at lunchtime, staked out the front gate and intercepted him as he left school, secretly took photos of him and kept them in her wallet, and so on and so on. That all seemed more like a frontal assault than a clever scheme, though.

Of course, Mikuru struck back. She also transferred into Itsuki’s school. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just have her there to begin with? If her raison d’être is protecting Itsuki, it wouldn’t have been strange for her to be in school with him—on the contrary, it would’ve made more sense that way.

Without any explanation whatsoever, for some mysterious reason Mikuru and Yuki never fought with laser beams and magic spells on school grounds. Apparently their goal had become trying to be the first to capture Itsuki’s heart.

The story went completely off the rails, devolving into a narrative about two girls vying for the affections of one boy.

Of course, Yuki had a huge problem. After all, Mikuru lived under the same roof as Itsuki, giving her an advantage that was like the Great Wall of China, making Yuki (where did she live, anyway?) an invading Hun, totally unable to get over the barrier.

To make a comeback, Yuki would have to resort to extreme methods.

“…”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Yuki started hugging Itsuki regardless of time and place. No doubt the sudden feminine physical contact was meant to leave Itsuki shaken, but Yuki’s face was so expressionless, it’s hard to ascertain what, if anything, she was feeling, and it was more eerie and off-putting than anything else.

Her facial expression had no relationship to her actions.

Although Mikuru managed to act jealous every time she saw
the two of them, from outside Itsuki appeared not to care one way or the other, so there was no real emotion conveyed at all.

It was as though it didn’t really matter what happened to Itsuki.

And owing to time constraints, it was about time to gather everybody together for one last gasp at the finale.

Perhaps because they were bored with the lighthearted school scenes and the cease-fire that applied on the school grounds, or perhaps because their true identities simply came through sometimes, Mikuru and Yuki now resumed their original roles of Battle Waitress and Alien Sorcerer and skirmished sporadically.

With each scene, the depth of the plot’s confusion increased as it progressed thusly:

—Mikuru fighting Yuki and Yuki’s cat familiar, Shamisen, in an apartment complex courtyard.

—Mikuru and Yuki (with Shamisen) tossing firecrackers at each other in the bamboo forest behind the school.

—Mikuru and Yuki wrestling each other in front of some unknown person’s house, with a bored Shamisen looking on.

—Mikuru and Yuki chasing each other around Itsuki’s living room, while Itsuki’s little sister holds Shamisen and laughs.