Life After the Death of Haruhi Suzumiya
Chapter 3
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One month after the funeral
The streets were busy, as it usually was on a Saturday.
I had just finished the cram school and walked through the crowds back to my shared home.
"Ridiculous. What is the purpose of human life? I now need to eat, and the automated breathing actually helps us to live! No thanks to her…"
I saw my reflection staring back at me from a shop window. I had the face of a devil, scrunched up and teeth bared. I scared away the people who walked in front of me. I tried to return it to normal.
"What am I supposed to do now? Just be a normal schoolgirl? I've had the ability to change anything around me, and now I've lost that…"
I mumbled to myself and vaguely heard that certain people matched my footsteps and speed. Just the rush hour home.
"And Kyon… I can't do anything. No knives, strangles, even punches don't work…" I sighed out loud, "Nagato-san must really want me to suffer."
The ground was dirty. There was a subtle change in the environment which made me look up.
"Hang on, why did I walk into the side street?"
Taking a moment to gather myself, I noted that the area was completely silent, and the breeze from earlier was now still. The sun's heat was bearing down on me.
That and I was surrounded by twenty people, men and women of varying ages staring blankly at me.
"Oh? And who might you be?" I felt for my bag and found the knife I kept with me, for emergencies you understand, and held it tight inside the protective cover of the bag.
"You are Asakura Ryouko." One of them began, before the next person in line spoke, "Formerly of the Data Integrated Thought Entity." The next woman continued, "Formerly of the Macrospatial Quantum Cosmic Existence." A young boy followed, "Currently Human."
I narrowed my eyes, "What are you, members of my fan club or something?"
"No."
The sequence of one sentence ending, only for the person to the right of the speaker to start the next one continued.
I always spun around to keep an eye on the one speaking at all times.
"You are of interest to us. We would like you to join us. A person being a part of the Entity and an ally to their group would be crucial."
"What's in it for me?" My grip on the knife tightened.
"Naturally, you would receive power. Not unlike the data manipulation. There is only one simple exception."
Not taking the bait to ask what it was, I was intrigued regardless.
"How did you manage to lure me here for this talk?"
"Humans are fickle creatures. Their minds are sheep. We synchronised our steps with your own. Once there was resonance, it was simple to control your movements."
I thinned my smile, a unique feeling of the lips pressing against one another harder.
This did not sound good.
I'm no longer a Terminal or of the Sky Canopy, but I still possess some of that knowledge, that's why my grades remain excellent.
It should not be that easy to fool someone of my level of intelligence.
"You need my memories, a spy maybe? What do you want from them? You want to kill them?"
"Nothing so mundane. The mere clinical act of killing them."
I relaxed my smile. I will look forward to being a part of torturing my little sister. I didn't even understand that the next person was speaking, until it registered in my head.
"We will delete their existences from this universe. Completely and utterly."
I stopped.
The beads of sweat growing on my brow were a new experience. My forehead was really damp now.
"Why?"
This time there was a pause in their response, the first since our exchange.
"We have no reason."
My face was now cold, not due to a breeze, since the air was unnaturally still.
After a quick check mentally, I realised that the blood from my cheeks had rushed away, taking with it the warmth. My heart rate had also slowed remarkably.
I felt more beads of sweat get produced on my brow and arms.
Suddenly, my body grew agitated. Breathing was now manually activated, and I was sucking in air faster than before as my heart rate accelerated. Adrenaline flooded my arteries, making me react the way I should.
Pulling out the dagger and taking a defensive stance, I readied myself.
They were dangerous.
"If that's the case, then I need to just kill you here and now."
I ran to the last woman who spoke. My reflexes aren't what they used to be, given Nagato-san's restrictions on my body, but I was still fast by human standards.
Despite this, she opened her mouth, and I saw the ones around her did the same thing, probably the one's behind me.
Before I could dodge, the created a cage around me, made from a burning red laser. I knew that touching it would be useless, especially with the knife.
I snarled at them. I haven't been locked up like this, ever. Even Nagato-san didn't treat me this way.
I knew they weren't human from the beginning. My Terminal senses don't exist any more, but I could tell from their manner of movements. No extraneous bodily twitches, just perfectly statuesque. Looking closer, they didn't even have the fake breathing.
"Who the hell are you?"
The cage changed shape to match my body shape, and slowly it began to contract.
I knew then that it was simply going to restrain me in a lot of hurt.
Just before it touched my skin, they all responded as one.
"We are the Null."
Once the searing began, my pain receptors went into overdrive, driving my writhing body insane with agony.
I screamed.
I screamed so hard that my lungs ached and begged for me to stop, I felt that were I to continue this course I would expel them from my body, even though I knew it was biologically impossible.
Ah, I'm still yelling, but I can barely hear it now as my voice was now hoarse. How long was I crying out for? Thirty minutes? Ten? Or was it simply twenty seconds? My impeccable memory was distorted by the fact of my body diverting all its attention to protecting itself, even if it meant sacrificing some aspects of my new humanity.
Why was no one coming?
Oh God, I can smell my skin burning…
I have to do something…
I fell to the ground, the burning cage acting like a grotesque string vest, following me down.
The pain was fading, as was my consciousness. My impression was that this is how they take people away, by making them hurt so much that the humans choose to simply black out.
I stuck my dagger in the ground, grabbed the bare blade with my hand and squeezed.
I looked at the last person to speak to me. Well, tried to at least. I had to close one eye was as it was being fried by part of the laser field.
"When all this is over, I'll kill you myself."
My body must have reached its limits…
I blacked out.
Ten seconds later
12:25:35 AR Monitors stable. No abnormalities detected.
12:25:36 AR Monitors stable. No abnormalities detected.
12:25:37 AR Monitors stable. No abnormalities detected.
12:25:38 AR Monitors stable. No abnormalities detected.
12:25:39 AR Monitors stable. No abnormalities detected.
12:25:40 AR Monitors INACTIVE. Priority 1 Alert.
Initiate Entity Protocol - Sigma Ampersand Delta.
Target – AR
Materialisation to Last Known Location
3
2
1
Target Lost.
AR Bag and Bowie Fixed Blade located.
Blood smear - DNA analysis confirmation of AR presence.
Indications of excessive heat and burn marks.
Priority 2 Alert
Initiate Entity Protocol – Sigma Oscar Sigma
Contact the Four
Messaged E1 Ally
Messaged S1 Ally
Messaged T1 Ally
Calling Unknown Factor
That moment
I had Saturday off. Somehow my studies had improved enough that I wouldn't need to take cram classes immediately.
Or perhaps I didn't have enough motivation to get myself placed in a classy university, so my teachers didn't want to pressure me that much.
Not like Haruhi, Koizumi and the others of course. They were encouraged to take extra classes.
I can't even imagine what Yuki's teacher said. She barely tells me anything about her lessons, not that she'd have any problems with any question ever.
Strange, my phone was ringing, and that specific ringtone only meant one person.
"Hi Yuki. What's up?"
"I need you here. Initiating Matter to RJ-45 converter."
Uh oh… Her voice sounded less like human or her SQL hyper speech, and more like a classic modem.
Then I felt my body appear in her flat.
"Okay, what's wrong, Yuki?"
I could no longer be surprised with her any more, so I just asked her normally. I think she's rubbing off on me, since her lack of reaction to my lack of reaction erased all unnecessary explanations and side-tracking.
It took me another second to see that Tsuruya-san, Koizumi and Asahina-san were here too.
Yuki stood up and spoke again, this time to all of us.
"Monitoring data entities around Asakura Ryouko went silent 32 seconds ago. Her presence is nowhere to be found. The area where she was last registered is isolated. We will transport there now."
Her green and yellow wings unfurled and her eyes changed again. Entity Yuki bathed us in light and we all materialised in an alleyway.
Again, I was calm throughout. No flustered movements from myself nor any gasps of surprise.
Yuki must really be changing me as a person.
"Asakura went missing here?"
I looked around and didn't see anything particularly odd about the area. Koizumi knelt down.
"Her bag and dagger." He looked at it closer, "There's blood on it."
Yuki picked it up and held it by the handle.
"I have analysed it and have confirmed it to be her own blood."
Asahina-san shivered, to which Tsuruya-san handed her a cardigan she was wearing.
"So, Ryouko-san left her bloods there for a reason, no?"
I looked at the blade and frowned.
"There's no pattern on it or words… What could she mean?"
"Unknown." Entity Yuki was glowing further, undoubtedly refracting the light around us so no bystanders would spot what we were up to. "Analysing further."
We watched as she conducted a series of spells, her wings unfurling out and covering the dagger, now hovering in mid-air.
I felt a tug on my top from behind and glanced back to see Asahina-san looking at me with a red face.
"Umm, sorry to bother you Kyon-kun."
It's no bother, we're in the middle of something none of us can help out with anyway.
She smiled back behind her hand, "I just wanted to ask, how are things going between you and Nagato-san?"
Oh, such a simple question? Does it even have one answer?
"We're doing okay. It's only little things, holding hands, sitting close to each other when watching TV, the odd hug now and then." I coughed to cover my embarrassment, "I don't know how fast I should go, maybe I'll scare her off..."
Asahina-san giggled, "Well, I'm sure you're doing fine. Nagato-san is probably learning her own limits too. I doubt you could do anything to frighten her." She folder her hands behind her back, "Perhaps she is also scared of moving forwards too. You've always known her to take things at her own pace."
Maybe you're right, I never thought of it that way...
"By the way, your injuries..."
It was taboo, we should never talk about that time, when all of existence was lost. This is the first time I've ever brought it up with her since Haruhi's resurrection at her own funeral.
However, it becomes near impossible when there is the daily reminder of Asahina-san moving about in pain.
For some incomprehensible reason, her future guardians and colleagues could not heal those wounds she received escaping from those monsters in that Time War. Though Koizumi's descendants helped the elder version escape, they also tried to help her younger self, though not without cost from what little we gathered.
The only aspect which made sense was that Asahina-san (Big) now had these scars on her arms and legs, therefore I could only presume that her current image was predetermined.
Our Asahina-san had to suffer this pain to become who she would be. Daily spasms, endless itching, sporadic bleeding, greater anaemia resulting in more fainting; that cursed technology from that time was made to hurt people, killing them too early was not their goal until the latter days of the war.
She needs to go through all this to one day be the head of the Time Traveller syndicate, though she would never know until that role was thrust upon her.
I knew she would clam up immediately when I mentioned that time, but this time Tsuruya-san jumped in, quite literally, to answer for her.
"Oh, don't worrys about that Kyon-kun!" She slapped her hand on my shoulder several times rapidly, "I have some medicine at home from my family treasures, with a little helps from this." Her hand pulled out that mysterious sliding cylinder timer, "I apply it to her every days now. She doesn't hurts so much when she walks."
Asahina-san blushed even harder and backed away, "Ts-Tsuruya-san!" She looked at me in fear, "I-It's not like that Kyon-kun!"
I raised my eyebrow and even let my jaw droop a little. What was she talking about?
Tsuruya-san stared hard at Asahina-san, "You do have a nice figure though, I can see why Haruhi-san likes you so much!" Running up to her, she gave her a squeezing hug, much to the latter's reluctance and need to escape.
Ignoring the pair, I turned back to Yuki as her glowing ceased.
"I have delved deeper into the DNA sequence and have noted irregularities with her genetic make-up." Yuki returned to her normal self and held the dagger in her outstretched hand. "Asakura Ryouko was transported from this location using non-terrestrial means."
Koizumi was the only one listening intently, "So, she was teleported away? Like your method?"
"The means of transportation were much more prolonged." Yuki flicked her eyes to me before looking back at Koizumi, "My primary means include converting matter to other forms, namely electronic signals to be downloaded via the telecommunications and cellular network to a single location, then converting back into matter. Total time for transfer is at most five hundred milliseconds. Emergency situations call for Upper Level Clearance, full physical translocation of all individuals within a certain radius of SQL fields and tables."
"Wait a second..." I had to get my head around this, "When you teleport us, it's more or less instant. So you're saying Asakura was teleported away... slowly...?"
"Yes." Her eyes glanced at the knife, "The blood on her blade was her own by a self-inflicted wound. The fresher blood has serious signs of degradation in the form of molecular cohesion and electron removal. Some bodily fluid was at an atomic level."
Tsuruya-san heard something intriguing and piped up, "Are you saying her body was separateds at a molecular level? That's unheard of..."
"Correct."
Asahina-san must have thought of something strange, as she too spoke, "D-Does that mean... Was Ryouko-san conscious when all this happened?"
"Unknown, but all pain receptors must have registered the body being torn apart atom by atom, and continued even when she was a cloud of atoms."
Disgusting.
Truly horrific.
The pain she must have felt.
Each atom ripped away from her forcefully, one-by-one, only to be merged again at another end.
Or so we hope...
"Is... Is it possible she was killed? Yuki, how could you tell this was a procedure to transport someone instead of simply making them vanish into thin air?"
I was asking for some hope. I knew Yuki had trouble with providing it, she generally reported the facts only.
"I am one hundred percent certain she was taken somewhere."
I let out a breath I had been holding as she continued.
"Were she simply killed, her atoms would still be in this area, spread out over a wide region as an invisible gas. Yet, there is no sign of a single atom of her being, aside from her life fluid on the knife."
Koizumi nodded, "It makes sense, even if she had left this area as a gas, Nagato-san should still be able to detect her somehow."
"Th-Then, why can't you find her if she has merged again?" Asahina-san asked a pertinent question.
"Unknown." Yuki blinked, never a good sign, "I cannot detect her presence on this entire planet. The only sign she ever existed is on her knife." She paused for a second, "I can only assume that either she has been taken away from Earth, or she is still here, but other forces are preventing me from detecting her."
"Even in your Entity form?" I asked.
Yuki nodded.
We all stood there, finally gauging the enormity of what had transpired.
Someone, or something, was more powerful that the Data Integrated Thought Entity, and whoever it was, they took our former enemy, by force.
"She had her knife out... She must have been ambushed." Koizumi broke the silence.
"The enemy came to her directly..." Tsuruya-san nodded, "They wanted her for some reason."
Obviously, she used to be our enemy, nearly killing me a few times. They probably wanted her knowledge.
"But to what end?" I asked, "If they forced her to join them, what is their goal?"
I looked to the others and they were all quiet.
Koizumi removed his mobile from his pocket, "I will need to advise the Organisation, and the Family. Others may be in danger."
"I need to report this too, maybe there is some information I can give out about this series of events." Asahina-san was nervous and jittery, wanting to return to her time as soon as possible.
Tsuruya-san clutched onto her arm firmly, coaxing her to calm down, "I'll check my records of anything similar. I'll pop into some advanced worlds too for more intel. Maybe someone has heard of this group, or that teleport methods."
"If you wish, I can teleport you back to your previous locations." Yuki declared.
The three nodded, and seconds later they vanished, having been sent home.
I turned back to the one I confessed my feelings to, "Yuki, can you detect anything different? What are your plans?"
She was fully focused on me now, her eyes boring into my own, "There are No signs of an enemy, they are Nowhere to be found." She paused and her eyes looked down a millimetre or two, "There is Nothing I can do."
I was powerless to help. A mere, unaltered human, surrounded by fantastic beings and people with abilities far beyond my own.
The only thing I could do for Yuki was to walk up to her and hug her, pulling her in close.
"It's okay, Yuki." I stroked her hair and released her from the hug, in case she was getting too claustrophobic or embarrassed, or uncomfortable. "You did what you could, it's not your fault Asakura was captured."
She was still looking down, "I did not foresee this possibility. The monitors were simply for tracking her whereabouts and to ensure the safety of anyone around her should she decide to impulsively kill."
I shook my head, "It's still not your fault. She took out her dagger, didn't she? She must have been ready to attack someone who was after her. Wouldn't the program have activated it to change it into another flower again?"
Yuki was quiet, but nodded in reply.
"We'll figure out what to do, don't worry." I smiled at Yuki, since she chose to angle her head upwards again.
The minute frown on her brow was replaced with her neutral visage, a welcome sign for me.
"I will do what I can to locate her." Yuki said, "It seems we need to wait for now."
I agreed. If Asakura was taken from us like this and we had no way of knowing what they wanted, then the ball was in their court.
I can only hope that when Asakura woke up that she would give them hell.
I watched Yuki as she stood there, completely stationary.
"Shall we go home?"
She shook her head and come towards me, and then holding my hand slowly, "Can I visit the library first?" Her head lowered quite a bit, and I couldn't see her eyes beneath her fringe, "It would be nice if you could join me."
I sighed.
It's been one month since I told her how feel in a wild act of freedom. Having been through oblivion and returning more or less unscathed, I couldn't live my life with regrets any more.
Somehow, our relationship continued, a new couple, fill with all these uncertainties. Me, a simple human, her, a near goddess ability to change matter. To her, I must seem to be a microbe, a minuscule speck of life to her immense strength and power.
But, she agreed to be with me.
I'll never fully understand her thoughts, yet somehow I think she feels the same way about me. Yuki was always observing Haruhi. She was never granted the necessary social skills to perform like Asakura, to speak in a comprehensible language, to show bodily twitches and minor movements. Now with the Entity inside her, she has barely changed, and to be honest, I'm happy with that.
If she started acting as friendly and open as Asakura, it would scare me.
This is why I get surprised when she makes requests of me like this. I don't want to pressure her, it is her own choice to do what she wants, I'm happy with the speed of the relationship, rushing never works out well for both parties.
Asahina-san was right, Yuki could be nervous of how to act. With all the world's knowledge inside her, she wants to remain herself, undistorted by outside factors. She's only doing things the way she knows how.
I held her hand a little stronger.
"Sure, let's go. Have you got your library card?"
She nodded as we began to walk out of the alley into the street.
I felt her hand tighten for a second, making me glance at her questioningly.
"Thank you, Kyon."
And on her face was a tiny, but nevertheless pretty smile.
Meanwhile
Unknown Location
"GYAAA~ KIIIIHH!"
I saw my arm appear in front of me, floating towards my right eye, which was impossible since either of them weren't attached to anything.
"AAAGHH~ HUUURK!"
My hand separated from the wrist, then my fingers were removed from the knuckles, then at each bone joint.
"KYAAHAHaa... Ha... WahahahaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAHAA~!"
Who am I kidding? This is my voice screaming to myself. My laugh echoed through the large chamber. So nondescript was the generic nature of it that it defied my now contradictory and convoluted senses.
My left eye was focused on my navel as my skin was peeled away, and my intestines were unravelled weaving through other body parts.
My nose... They kept my hands away from it to block it off... Though it was detached, I could smell everything, my organs, tears, excreta, bile, and a copious amount of my blood.
The legs were kicking each other, smashing the bones which were not removed by other means.
It's better not to speak about what was happening to the areas around my pelvis and my chest, though my eyes were always drawn to those parts. The amount of gore, the indecency, I was subjected to every sort of ignominy possible in this age.
My mouth when not screaming was swallowing constantly, the cloud of blood making it harder to breathe.
Yes, this was how they created drones.
By making their victims experience undeath, their everliving bodies were controlled by outside forces to tear themselves apart, and the humiliation of watching, tasting, smelling, hearing and feeling every microsecond of this agony.
I grinned again, my teeth tasted coppery to my tongue, as I tried to get control of my disembodied eyeballs to view the scattered parts of my body.
Vomiting only added to the red mist, but I could not resist any more.
I finally saw my ruined face, the eye sockets bare, nose and mouth missing. My ears were still there as was my scalp, but my beautiful hair was red now...
The only thing beneath my head was a part of my neck, and my spine extending beneath that.
I have my eyes, and I cannot unsee.
I have my nose, and I cannot unsmell.
I have my skin, and I cannot unfeel.
I have my ears, and I cannot unhear.
I have my mouth, and I cannot untaste.
Therefore, I have to become UnLife.
I Must Become Nothing.
But notwithstanding all this, I have my mouth, and I must scream.
But first things first.
I laughed. Once. Twice. Thrice.
Again and again and again and again and again and again.
I begged inside my dissolving mind for the pain to stop.
It never did.
Author's Notes
Hmm, last update was 16th June 2008, so, 4 years between updates isn't so bad now, is it?
Had inspiration for this chapter recently. As per usual, no promises on the next chapter. Maybe another 4 years time?
Have a good summer everyone!
J