Forward: I haven't written any fanfiction for a bit, mostly because I've been enduring Initial Entry Training in the Army since March of this year. I won't go into it, but I've had a lot of training at this point. Anyway, I kind of figured instead of continuing with my Avatar/Naruto crossover (I'll get to it, though, I just have the next chapter on another computer right now), I'd like to craft a second story based in the Suzumiya-'verse. In the case of this fanfic, though, it will really be Haruhi's world.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoshin
(The Temerity of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Prologue:
Some American author once said something to the effect that limiting one's choices to what's possible or reasonable disconnects one from what one actually desires, leaving only a less desirable compromise. Of course, with most people an idea like this would be pure nonsense. If I were to, for instance, choose to attempt to fly to school under my own power rather than walk simply because I would desire it more, I would be labeled insane by most people, and probably wouldn't last long, besides. However, for one particular schoolgirl of my acquaintance, taking the impossible or unreasonable choice and making it work was the norm.
This was why I wasn't entirely surprised when, as I lost ground to the evil Student Council President who had captured the aforementioned girl, I found myself suddenly filling with power. My energy beam pushed back against his and overtook him, blasting him through the wall.
"Whoa, Kyon!" Haruhi gushed from her position chained to the wall. "You look pretty good as a blond."
"Th-thanks," I muttered.
"Unexpected," the Council President said, rising from the rubble and pushing his disturbingly luminescent spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "It seems your power limits are greater than I'd thought. Not bad at all for a newcomer."
"A renegade from the Organization shouldn't presume to know anything about me," I responded.
"And a trainee shouldn't presume to know anything about the Organization," he shot back with an evident cold anger. Then a smirk spread across his face. "Or about me. You think this was really the limit of my power?" Electric red power arced off of the President's body, and his muscled rippled and strained against his tattered clothes. A single glowing wing ripped out of his back and a powerful wind rushed by.
"Alright!" Haruhi cheered. "This is exciting. I knew the Student Council President wouldn't be so easy to defeat."
I hadn't had such a challenge to my new esper powers in the year since I'd discovered them back when the Class Representative, who had secretly been an alien lifeform, had unwittingly triggered them in her murderous attack. Now, however, it seemed I had some new powers to test out. My body phased into golden energy and I struck faster than light, but my single pinioned opponent was able to block my attack, merely skidding back several meters. We rapidly exchanged a series of strikes, a jab flowing into a parry which led to a reverse sidekick which was fluidly dodged and allowed for a knife hand strike to the side. It continued like this for several more seconds, each strike building the dance to a crescendo.
Then it was there. The shatter point, in which the slightest bit of pressure properly applied would disrupt the flow of combat and push the fight in the favor of one or the other. I parried a punch downward and brought my arm up to the President's chin, wrist relaxed in preparation for a quick snap. Then I felt the wind leave my lungs suddenly, and my vision blurred. His strike to my face had been a feint, and he had executed a simultaneous strike to my solar plexus. I was stunned.
"Now," he growled, capitalizing on my distress by plowing into me with another supercharged punch. "You..." another strike, "Will know..." and another, "The power..." my vision was going dark, "of the..." I was pretty certain I heard unpleasant cracking sounds coming from within my body, "Student Council!" My body dropped to the ground, and I was heaving. He brought his fists up above his head in preparation for a final strike. "Unlimited power!"
With an audible snap and the hiss of ozone, the Student Council President screamed in pain. I looked up to see Nagato dressed in a kendo uniform brandishing her violet hued beam sword. "Access is denied," she said calmly to the hulking monster before her.
The President hissed. "Do you know what you're dealing with, Yuki Nagato?"
Nagato's blue-tinted glasses beeped and incomprehensible characters flickered across lenses. "Your current power level allows for a net energy output of 5 petajoules of energy, the approximate equivalent of a modern nuclear fission based weapon," she said.
The Student Council President smirked smugly.
"However, my own net output is 131.2 hellajoules, approximately enough to effectively reduce Earth's moon to rubble." The alien artificial life form didn't seem fazed by the president's sudden worried expression, but offered, "However, this is my maximum power output, and I am only authorized to use one millionth of my full power without a special request made to the IDSE." The president suddenly seemed to be relieved. "This is still 26 times your power."
"Ah," the president said, cowed once more. "Well, never mind that! You won't win this!" He snapped his fingers dramatically. A screen appeared and a familiar face appeared.
"The Computer Society President!" Haruhi exclaimed. "I can't believe it!"
I had the feeling that believing it too much was precisely what prompted this sudden appearance. After all, Haruhi's sense of the dramatic was well known. Besides that, it was no wonder given how she'd treated him in the past.
"That's right, Suzumiya," the Computer Society President said menacingly. "For what you've done I'll punish you."
"I saved your butt is what I did!" Haruhi growled. "That cricket would have eaten you if not for me!"
"If not for Kyon-kun and Miss Nagato," the Computer Society President corrected. "And you were the one who created the cricket to begin with!"
Haruhi gulped. "Oh... you know about that... of course."
"I have interesting friends as well. Ones who are more willing to divulge important information, such as your ability to reprogram reality." He glanced at Nagato and sighed. "I really am sorry to have to involve you in this, Miss Nagato. I really do value your contributions to the Computer Research Society... however, I'll have to take you out of commission."
"Not possible," Nagato said matter-of-factly.
"All too possible, I'm afraid," he said, and his fingers began tapping rapidly on a keyboard off-screen.
Nagato went wobbly for a moment, as if her knees had turned to jelly. "Disk Error. S3lvbiBJJ20gc29ycnk ... SSBsbw ..."
A new figure seemed to materialize from thin air behind Nagato, and interrupted her undecipherable gibberish with an elbow to her head, sending her flying into the wall. This new player was clad like some kind of ninja... not a real one, of course, but with a bright green outfit like one of those incredibly visible ninja from video games that show way too much flesh to be useful. She had a mask over the bottom half of her face, but the pale green hair pouring from her head gave me some idea who it might be. As if to confirm, she pulled the mask down, revealing her face.
"Emiri Kimidori?" Haruhi said. "But what are you doing here?"
"You humiliated my love," Miss Kimidori said. "And you've caused so much trouble. You weren't aware when I met you before, but I am like Nagato: a human interface for the IDSE. Combining Snookie's cracking skills with my interface, we were able to work together to upload a virus into Nagato's CPU."
"'Virus'?" Haruhi repeated incredulously.
"... 'Snookie'?" I also repeated... also incredulously.
"According to my calculations, Kyon-kun," Miss Kimidori continued. "Your current net output is 4.873 petajoules. Without assistance from Miss Nagato, the probability of you defeating the Student Council President is low. And with my power added in, it is not possible."
"!" Nagato spouted as she was suddenly on the other human interface, her sword slashing at the green haired ninja.
Kimidori backed away, pulling a beam sai from her belt and blocking the attacks. "I didn't realize the virus would also impair your logic, Miss Nagato. Our power was nearly equal before. With your current malfunction you cannot hope to defeat me." She demonstrated by sweeping Nagato's legs out from under her and kicking her through another wall.
"Kyon!" Haruhi shouted. "Yuki can handle Kimidori. She's buying you some time to take care of that shiny glasses freak, so get to it!"
I smiled at that. "As you command, fearless leader." My body phased into energy just as the Student Council President's did, and our essences clashed, rising through the ceiling and into the grey sky. Each collision shed pure energy and shook the foundations of the Sealed Reality in which we fought. After leveling a good portion of the school and surrounding areas, we both rematerialized into our physical bodies. The Student Council President, if anything, looked more fearsome than before.
"Come on, Kyon-kun," he growled, his voice now a ludicrously deep bass. "Keep hitting me. When it comes to brute strength versus brute strength, you know I'll come out on top."
"That's right..." I admitted, but I phased again, anyway, and shot toward him. I rematerialized and exchanged blows, attempting to overwhelm him with my superior skill. Unfortunately, when it came to skill, the Student Council President also outmatched me.
"Fool!" he exclaimed melodramatically, grabbing me by the tie and pulling me into a headbutt. "You will never defeat the Student Council!" He dropped me and as a send-off delivered 99 rather well aimed energy blasts to drive me into the ground. He raised his hands up above his head again, drawing massive amounts of power. This must be that net output to which Nagato had referred earlier. Too bad I couldn't seem to get up. Oh, well... farewell, Dear Brigade Chief. I never got to say how much I...
Oh. It seemed, fantastic as it was, that the Student Council President had frozen midstrike. I struggled slowly to my feet and caught my second wind. This was convenient.
"You're welcome, Kyon-kun," a familiar melodic voice said.
"Miss Asahina," I greeted the time traveler warmly. "I know I told you to stay, but I'm glad you ignored me this time."
Miss Asahina smiled cutely, but then became serious. "I can only stop time in this area for a short period, so it's up to you to finish this quickly. You have thirty seconds remaining."
I got it. I phased up to where the hulking President floated frozen in midair and cupped my hands to my side. Power built up between my palms, and I just kept pumping. Sweat poured down my face, but I wouldn't give up until I'd squeezed every last drop into this attack.
"—aahahah―uh?" The President's attack had already been launched, and the explosion rocked the ground below, but his joy was quickly turned to sorrow when he noticed that his quarry wasn't there anymore, but was instead shoving a golden beam of energy down his throat.
A moment later, I was back at the school. I looked over at the place where Haruhi had been chained, but the shackles were curiously empty.
"About time you got back here," the SOS Brigade chief said. "I thought you'd never finish that guy." She came from behind me and smacked me on the head. "You need to go help Yuki, now! Uh... hey, your hair's back to its boring old self again."
I don't know that I appreciated my usual hair being referred to as boring, but she was right to point out that I had indeed lost my dye-job power up at some point. I was actually rather exhausted. However, this was no time to lose my momentum. "Where is she?"
"Don't ask me!" Haruhi said. "You might as well ask me to tell you both the speed and the location of an electron!"
She was starting to pick up this annoying habit of referencing random principles of physics or other trivial high brained information in a sarcastic manner. I would really like to punch the person influencing her like this in the face. Regardless, there was still the matter of finding Nagato and Kimidori, which didn't take as long as I'd feared.
"Kyon, they're over there!" Haruhi shouted, pointing.
Thank you, I'd seen the massive explosion. I shot her an appreciative smile, however, and said "I'm on it, Haruhi." I blasted off at the speed of light, landing in the general vicinity of the explosion prepared to fight. The two interfaces were locked in heated combat, too intertwined for me to execute a ranged attack on the green haired Student Council secretary. I was forced, then, to leap behind Kimidori and grab her from behind, attempting to pull her away from Nagato.
Kimidori's fist had an abrupt meeting with my face. "You're rather impressive, Kyon-kun," she said. "I can see why Miss Nagato thinks so highly of you." She retched suddenly as a very large blade that used to be Nagato's fist plunged itself through her torso. "A-aah... I let myself be distracted. And you have become quite a bit more adept at deception than your original programming would indicate. I didn't realize you had any power left."
"... Delete..."
"No, I don't think so," Kimidori said cheerfully, grasping Nagato's blade arm firmly. "You see, this was all merely a distraction in order to extract certain overwritten data without your notice. Data in which I think the Integrated Data Sentient Entity will take great interest."
"01001001 01110010 01110010 01100101 01101100 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101110 01110100."
"Your data was already corrupted before I uploaded the virus," Kimidori said. "You should have been reformatted months ago. And there's no idle threat hanging over the IDSE to prevent it, here."
Was she trying to imply that this was endorsed by Nagato's own boss?
"Not explicitly," Kimidori admitted. "However, I have no fear of the consequences should I be forced to damage this interface irreparably."
I struggled up from the floor. I was definitely drained beyond reason, but I'd stand up for my ally, damn it! "You won't do anything. If you do... I'll..."
"What will you do, Mr. Smith?" she said calmly. Before I had the chance to inquire as to the odd nomenclature, she began talking into a small watch on her wrist. "Have you finished defragmenting the data?"
"Yes, Midori-chan," the familiar voice on the other end said. "I'm unpacking the file, now."
Kimidori smiled pleasantly. "Very good, Ya..." She froze, choking on her words as she seemed to pixelize like some kind of bad 3D model. As these 3D pixels, or rather "voxels," shifted and changed, Kimidori slapped Nagato's arm away and backed up. "SSdtIGNoYW5naW5n!" My mouth gaped as the human interface reintegrated into the crisp image of a very familiar and unwelcome memory.
"Ah," Asakura said demurely. "I was afraid my backup would be too corrupted... but what's going on?" She glanced at the drained Nagato. "I see, this is fortuitous. I hope you won't mind dying this time, Nagato." A knife appeared in her hand and she lunged at my alien friend. The sight of Asakura Ryoko struck cold fear in me, but I couldn't allow Nagato to be hurt any further. I jumped in the way of the attack and clung to Asakura; then, I moved through the barrier separating the Sealed Reality from actual Reality.
We fell onto the floor together in the empty school hallway. All the battle damage was left in the Sealed Reality, and thankfully school was ending just when we had entered the Sealed Reality to do battle with the Student Council President, so there would be no inconvenient witnesses. I straddled the murderous interface and pinned her wrists to the floor before she could recover. "Now I have you right where I want you, Asakura. I've been waiting for this for a long time."
Asakura Ryoko smiled benevolently. "I'd been hoping I would see you again, Kyon-kun. This is exactly what I want!"
I heard a nervous cough from behind us. Startled, I turned to see what some might erroneously call my "friend" but who could more accurately be referred to as "hanger-on," Taniguchi. He had apparently just rounded a corner to see me... on top of a girl... exchanging dialogue which upon mental review could be construed to imply something very wrong.
"Kyon... and Miss Asakura! I... thought you'd gone off to Canada," he said nervously. "Well... I think I'll be going, now. Enjoy yourselves!" The coward then turned and ran out of sight.
I jumped off the former Student Representative―why all our enemies tend to be student leadership, I don't know―and shouted down the hallway. "Taniguchi-kun! Wait, it's not what it looks like! Don't say anything..."
"Kyon-kun," Asakura said silkily as her hand slipped from behind across the front of my torso in what I might have otherwise assumed to be a flirty embrace if not for the other hand holding a cold blade to my throat. "The data in this world..." she said. "It seems to have been altered."
Miss Asakura, it is my sad duty to inform you that it is, in fact, your own mental state that has been altered, whether through natural deformity or hallucinogen. You, miss, are cracked.
Asakura continued to speak in that creepy cheery voice as her breath wisped past my ear with each syllable. "I almost didn't realize it at first until I got a chance to analyze your data. You've been heavily modified from your original state. Back then, you couldn't fight back at all."
What was she talking about? The first time she tried to kill me, the stress of the situation and the fact that she created a pocket reality similar in nature to Haruhi's Sealed Realities awakened my esper powers and began my introduction to the real depths of weirdness that was Haruhi Suzumiya.
"You're wrong," Asakura said. "As I said, you've been altered, as well as this world. What a wonderful opportunity to study Miss Suzumiya's potential for data creation. Even the Integrated Data Sentient Entity isn't capable of this. However... I think I can help..."
I could hear her begin to speak... or rather, make that noise interfaces tended to make when they were doing their magic data manipulation thing. It wasn't a pleasant noise; much like that of an old dial-up modem. That was only second to the unpleasantness I felt when Asakura's knife plunged deep into my chest, and she began to drag the blade down...