The Dream of Suzumiya Haruhi Chapter 38: The second act is always darker, a haruhi suzumiya series fanfic

The snow twirled and fluttered downwards in slow spirals, landing softly in big puffy clumps on the ground. The only sound that disturbed the soundless falling of snow was the unhurried crunching of wooden sandals against the new gown the earth wore for the season.

This is what my mind's eye saw, instead of the little scraps of paper that flapped down onto the wooden stage, with the quiet clacking of sandals against the wooden floor my other senses perceived.

The samurai emerged from under the web-like crisscrossing shade left by the leafless trees of the forest, head hanging limply, face completely hidden behind the wide brim of a straw hat. A sheathed katana, with a leather strap around it and the other end of the strap wrapped around the samurai's limp wrist, was being pulled carelessly behind the samurai, leaving a little trail next to the lonesome footprints in the powder snow.

As the samurai entered the empty clearing, there was a hectic fluttering of oily sounding wings, dreary caws accompanying the frantic beating of the feathered wings. The samurai's head lethargically rose to look upwards to the heavens, where the shades of the carrion birds fluttered, weaving in and out of the misty grey skies. The straw hat fell off the head of the samurai, but never reached the ground, instead settling against the tired warrior's back, as it had been tied around their neck with coarse, old string. The warrior looked upwards, looking parched and haggard, staring with silently begging and weary eyes at the circling birds. A raspy breath escaped, along with a tendril of spiraling wispy air from the mouth into the cold air.

The tired samurai peered about, noting the fork in the road, with a signpost offering a simple decision, left or right. The warrior strode up and examined the sign for a moment, not a single thing moving in the forest except for the spiraling wisps of white air from the mouth.

Then, after the heavy stillness, the sword was drawn, cold metal blazing with silver shine in the clear, crisp air. The blade's end was thrust into the ground, gravel crunching in protest, weaker forces of the earth shifting to make way for their forged brethren. The dark, empty scabbard was then held vicariously for a moment, wobbling as the warrior judged its weight.

The scabbard flew.

After tossing the scabbard into the air, the samurai's eye shifted to the ground, focusing on the foot of the post. The scabbard twirled in the air, rising higher until it reached its apex, reversing the direction of its revolving dance as it made its way back to towards the earth, away from the cold empty heavens. The scabbard clattered, echoing hollowly.

The warrior examined it for a moment, making special note of which way the tip was pointing.

"Left it is," the saumrai said before the fallen scabbard was gathered and the sword drawn back out from the earth which had bore it through ages past.

Clack.

The sword was sheathed, the hat was planted squarely on the messy head, and the first step towards the unknown was taken.

The lights dimmed, leaving everything in the dark.

Geez, what a stupid way to decide where to go. Besides, who actually starts travelling without a clue as to where they want to go? I know the call of the road is somehow always supposed to be magical in stories, but isn't this a bit too much? I for one simply don't buy it.

And I'm absolutely sure I've seen this story before, several times in fact. Then again, her movie had seemed to try and make up for its lack in originality by the shear amount of confusion as well, so I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising her play seemed to be ripped off from somewhere as well. What exactly she was ripping off I wasn't sure of, but what I was certain was that I had seen, heard and even occasionally read this same exact story many times in different forms. Who knows, maybe it's just in the nature of stories to repeat themselves throughout the ages. Archetypes and whatnot if you wanted to be pretentious about it all.

The lights came back.

"Our village is in peril!" Tsuruya-san shouted from off stage, actually managing to sound a bit like a horrified villager.

Well, that takes care of the exposition, doesn't it? Haruhi sure has a way with telling stories, doesn't she?

Asahina-san scurried across the stage in her humble peasant's outfit, face burning red under the combined glare of the stage lights and the expectant audience, which had turned out to be much bigger than anyone had expected. Apparently Haruhi's sexy campaign had been a bigger success this time than with the bunny suits that had swiftly been noticed by the faculty.

As Asahina-san scrambled to fetch all her precious sacks of food and dump them somewhere safe, Tsuruya-san kept screaming for help and such, snickering to herself in her palm between every line, straightening her face and voice with great effort to keep acting every time.

"Hahahaa!" Taniguchi did his best to appear menacing as he stepped on stage. He certainly looked the part in his messy ruffian get-up, but his delivery was strangely flat. "We'll be taking all your rice!"

Why? Why are you doing that? Are you hungry yourself? Or are you just a jerk? What exactly is the motivation here?

"No! Please! Don't! That's wrong!" Asahina-san grabbed a sack of rice like it was her infant.

Sigh… had the movie Haruhi had made been this bad?

…Yes, yes it had been.

"Hahahaa!" When in doubt, do an evil laugh. At least Taniguchi had that down. I still didn't know how Haruhi had managed to 'persuade' him and Kunikida into all of this.

"P-please, leave us alone!" Asahina-san continued her pleading in vain.

"Who's gonna stop us?"

Huoh… I clapped my palm against my forehead in annoyed frustration. That's my cue… Enter the humble horse shit shoveler (a brilliant casting choice by none other than Haruhi)… from stage left… maybe I should just keep going and exit stage right.

I grabbed my shovel, wondering if holding it in both my hands made me look any more threatening, took a deep breath, and made the plunge.

"Hey!" I shouted out, making my entrance with so much more gusto than I had expected it caught even me by surprise. I suppose frustration simply came easily with me. Unfortunately my passionate annoyance seemed to run out immediately as soon as it came into contact with the heavy stares of everyone in the crowd. "I… I… I…"

Oh crap. I'm choking up, aren't I?

Why am I even going along with this?

Because even after several days, with extremely detailed recounts, that idiot Koizumi still couldn't come up with any sort of solution to any of this!

"Who the hell are you?" Taniguchi asked woodenly. It was amazing how he could simply recite his lines exactly as he'd been told but only deliver them with the same bravado as a bank teller informed you how much money you had saved up on your account. Casting him as a mind-controlled zombie in the movie had obviously been the right choice.

"I… I…"

Oh for the love of… just say something!

"You… stop. Go away."

Actually, just keep your mouth shut. It'll be better.

I mean, all I really have to do is –

"Umph!"

…Get my ass handed to me on a silver platter…

Kunikida's punch in my gut had caught me by surprise. I had known it would be coming, and we'd actually rehearsed taking a punch in the gut a few times, but with my sudden onset of fatal stupidity caused by what I assumed was stage fright, I was nearly winded. The really dumb thing of course had been in convincing Kunikida to punch me harder to make it look more convincing. Taniguchi would have obliged from the beginning, but if I could decide which of the two would get to punch me, I preferred the smaller guy of the two.

The pain had really caught me off guard.

– Pain –

"You are the saddest excuse for a biped to ever blunder into the world!" Haruhi all but screamed full out, arms held straight at her sides, fists quivering with rage.

"Whatever…" I had had enough of her to last me for a decade. She'd gone too far this time and if she still couldn't see what she was doing was wrong then… I give up. I turned around on the sidewalk and stepped onto the road without a second look, to make my way across and as far away from Haruhi as possible.

But I never made it across.

Two glaring streaks of light blinded my eyes. Rubber screeched like a dying beast, only a few meters away from me. A sharp, hot pain shot up my thigh, but faded away quickly. All of a sudden, everything I knew disappeared into grey nothingness, and nothing but a metallic taste was left in my mouth, before it too disappeared, but not before I heard the scream. It wouldn't end, it just kept echoing without fading. A scream that tore me apart. A scream that broke me. Her scream.

'Stress levels approaching critical levels. Previous scenario memory is nearly complete however. Regulating calcium levels within synaptic regions. Returning to previous memory… Processing…'

Haruhi was standing before the two would-be villains, both on their knees and grasping at various places of fake injury.

"You'll be sorry!" Taniguchi shouted as he struggled to stand, wobbling a little too uncertainly. If he'd been playing a drunkard, his act might have been a bit more convincing.

"We'll get our boss!" Kunikida added as the two hurried off stage.

"Y-you did it! You drove the villains away!" Asahina-san exclaimed in delighted astonishment.

"Rice," was all the bedraggled samurai said to this.

"Ahhh… yes, of course. Come in. I did promise. Please, come in."

Haruhi slowly walked after Asahina-san as she disappeared behind some prop. Her gait however kept decreasing in speed until she was nearly behind the prop and she stopped. Nothing happened for a brief moment until I noticed Haruhi's shoulders tensing up and I remembered I was supposed to say something.

Shit. What had it been?

"Ah! Uhm! Wait!" I called out from the floor on which I was still sprawled following my attack. I sat up and gave the back of my head scratch in search of ideas. "How… who did you do that?" Yes, that was along the lines I was supposed to say. "How did you catch that blade like that? No normal ronin could do that… Who are you?"

Haruhi relaxed notably, the tense and squared shoulders dropping immediately as I finished my line of questions. "Just passing through…"

"You… but you heard what they said! They're coming back! We'll be dead! We need help!"

Haruhi stood there for a moment, as if to consider this, but then proceeded to walk after Asahina-san. "Those days are behind me," she said as she stepped out of view behind a prop.

– / –Tzzzt– / –

There was a static shock that ran from one ear to the other. The world disappeared for a second only to reappear again. I was still on stage, but walking about past prop trees.

My character was now on a quest. After Asahina-san's and my pleading for aid had fallen on deaf ears, Asahina-san had told me to seek out the Spirit of the Moon, said to live in the in a hidden alcove deep within the nearby woods.

How convenient.

This was becausr Haruhi's character had lost the will to fight along her journeys. Apparently she'd come across Miyamoto Musashi (give me a break!) in her travels and that had been it for her fighting days. When I'd asked if she had won the duel, expecting Haruhi to have easily triumphed over the great sword saint, Haruhi had actually showed some class. She had answered, 'Yes and no'. At first this had left me confused and judging by the questioning glances and scratched heads, the audience as well. I had asked her to elaborate and after a lengthy pause, she finally did. She told us all how she had come across Miyamoto in her travels.

The two had met on a bridge. The moment they had spotted each other, they froze in place. They had stared at each other for who knows how long, and they had both known the other's skills and strength immediately. Then the two warriors had simply kept walking and passed each other without a word.

People, me included, had still been confused.

Haruhi had then explained the experience. As she had stood there, immediately recognizing she wasn't dealing with a regular mortal, going through every possible attack, every conceivable strike, she had known with absolute certainty beyond any other beliefs she had held that any act on her part, whether she actually made contact with Miyamoto or not, would have ended her life. Miyamoto had apparently gone through the same experience. The two had indeed fought a duel, but it had been on a level beyond physical swords and bodies. Both of them knew that despite being capable of landing a fatal blow on their opponent, they would not walk away alive from the fight. However, perhaps Miyamoto had won the fight in the end, as he had moved on to face Sasaki Kojirou in a duel that would become legendary throughout the ages while Haruhi's fighting spirit had been crushed. It had been the first time the proud warrior had truly come face to face with her mortality, actually experienced the fear of death in combat… and it had broken her. She could no longer duel or fight with the same passion as before. The only reason she had won against the thugs earlier had been because they had been so incredibly inept.

Now she simply wandered the land, doing odd jobs for food, perhaps in a sense, doing all she could to run from the specter of death, of the End.

I had been left awed by the rather poignant tale from Haruhi. Never in a million years had I expected to hear such a compelling story from the likes of Haruhi, whose head was always up in the clouds. But I guess a sense of depth works in both directions.

Anyway, that was what had led to the next 'plot' development. Whilst Haruhi had gotten better acquainted with the friendly bottom of a sake bottle, I had been tasked to seek the aid of a grand oracle, the Spirit of the Moon who saw all things, past present and future, from the heavenly mirror that was the Moon.

The night was dark as the insides of an ancient tomb. High above distant gems of starlight glittered but were all out done by the reflected radiance of a full Moon, bathing the world in pale light.

The lights had been dimmed and a spotlight had been focused on the canvas at the back of the stage.

All was silent in the hushed world of the Spirit of the Moon. Nothing stirred in the deep shadows cast by her mirror. It was like a world all its own, like the abyss under the masses of vast oceans, or the night on the dark side of Pluto.

And then somebody in the audience coughed.

The Spirit of the Moon appeared, the beam of light from the Moon cutting the darkness in half.

Nagato was in a white gown with long draping sleeves that nearly touched the ground, a vision of a luminal deity in all her solemn beauty. Her skin was a light as her white dress, all of her figure glowing in the light like fresh snow.

– Snow –

Snow was drifting down slowly in a barren forest. The dead trees, spread sparsely around me, were like shriveled corpses, flailing at the sky with skinny arms in the cold wind. Though I was wearing thick layers of winter clothing, the freezing chill seemed to strike all the way to my bones.

I was carrying someone on my back. They weren't big or heavy, but my legs were so tired I could barely lift them anymore. The snow made all of this even worse as it nearly reached my knees. I could barely pull myself through the heavy snow.

'Adjusting…'

A sharp pain inside my head accompanied the electric shock this time as the world was wiped away by the grey warbled rush. The stage quickly reappeared.

All was silent once more as the whole world hushed in anticipation for a single word to drop from the faint lips of the Spirit of the Moon. Slowly, the head that had been lowered as if in reverential humbleness, rose to face the Moon. Her eyes were closed as she bathed in the white glow. Only when the magic of her serenity had seeped into the world did she open her dark eyes, eyes that still shone with the spark of distant stars somehow. Then those starlit pools of darkness turned to see me, and one knew that their final fate was to be revealed to them through the celestial mirrors.

"You - ¤%/#/ - have come - &/^*\%# - seeking…" Nagato's speech was erratic, her sentence oddly broken. Her eyes had opened up more than usual and as I stared into them, I could spot her pupils dilating as well.

"Nagato…?" I whispered anxiously, taking a step closer.

This wasn't part of the plan.

Nagato's eyes closed and her head limply fell backwards, like she'd lost all of the muscles in her neck. But just as I was about to reach out and grab her, to make sure she was okay, her head snapped back into position and her eyes were narrowed in an intense look. As I stared into those sharp eyes… something… dangerous stirred.

Why are her eyes so… are they… actually glowing a little?

Once more Nagato opened her mouth and spoke, but this time her voice, still its usual tone, seemed to carry with it a reverberating quality that carried her voice unlike ever before.

"The darkness of the journey never-ending shrouds us, waiting to unleash its vengeful howl.
It whispers like the wind, through threads of life and fate, pushing all towards an end most foul.
Since times more festive, in joyous fair twice visited, setting friend and foe against each other,
twisting all against all, feeding lies to topple walls, squires and knights around the Mother.
Waiting to strike, a silent stab when all seems over, when the grave's been dug for the eternal lie.
The wind of darkness shall abide, spinning threads ever more… for it knows its time is neigh…"

This… this doesn't have anything to do with the play, does it?

As her ominous proclamation came to an end, Nagato's eyes changed again and something like a sigh escaped from her before her head slumped forwards weakly, the small shift of weight forcing her to take a single step forwards to balance herself.

The stage curtains fell down with a loud flump, making me jump. But as soon I was over the trifling little thing I hurried over to Nagato, who was strangely slumping to one side, looking like she might collapse. As I got close, I could hear her breathing, heavier than ever before.

"Nagato? Are you okay?"

I reached out and steadied her, feeling a little shiver run along her body.

"You're cold and sweating." I brushed the hair off her brow, grazing the cool, sleek skin underneath with my fingertips. Nagato gazed up at me in a daze, looking disoriented like she had been spun around mercilessly, though that probably wouldn't have done anything to her typically.

"Interference… Source unknown. Link with the Integrated Data Sentient Entity was affected. Cross communication caused interference. Data streams were crossed, resulting in a juxtaposition of data from two sources."

"Whatever. I don't care about that stuff. Are you okay?"

"I will recover." Nagato stated as she got up, wavering a bit, but before I could reach out to her, she was practically back to her normal self, standing up straight, adopting a perfect posture any chiropractor would have swooned over.

A fair twice visited? Had Nagato actually been talking about the fair, the carnival we had all visited, where everything had nearly gone to hell? It never had been all too clear how that thing had come to be or who caused everyone else to act out during it. What else had Nagato said? Something about pitting us all against each other… and then a stab after everything was over…

But from where had that message, or more like a prophecy fresh from Delphi, come from? Or maybe the more important question, as always, was from whom?

"Wow, Yuki! That was amazing adlibbing!" Haruhi said, showing up out of nowhere to pat Nagato on the back. "You even put it in rhyme! The rest of you could take a few pointers! Now hurry up on to the next scene! The second act is here, where the storm hits the dung pile, where the heroes' true test against the increasing darkness will come!"

"A'ight! My big debut!" Tsuruya-san exclaimed excitedly, rushing off to fetch her hat and sword.

"C'mon, you two! Move!" Haruhi pushed the two of us off stage with the care of a bulldozer, far too caught up in her production to even notice the state Nagato was in.

I made sure the fragile little girl didn't topple over and led her to sit on a box off stage. She looked so damn pathetic like that, almost like a broken doll, head leaning to one side.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"I will recover," Nagato said, making an effort to look me in the eyes. "Do not worry."

"Seriously, if you need any-"

"Kyon!" Haruhi called out suddenly, interrupting me at a very delicate moment. "Get over here! Everything's ready! Pull the curtains!"

I glanced at Nagato one more time, just in case. She nodded and I was free to go. I rushed off and did my job while Haruhi hurried about with the lights, since everyone else was now on stage.

"Yarr! Thar be plenty o' booty fer plundering 'bout these parts!" I heard Tsuruya-san's boastful voice as I finished securing the curtains.

Looks like the silly girl hadn't given up on her pirate act.

"Uh, boss?" Taniguchi asked, probably a bit confused on how to react, or more specifically just how to act, towards such an outlandish characters.

"Yarr, t'is a fine day to be tasting the sting o' the salty seas!"

"Uhm, yeah… there's a beach just over there…" Taniguchi did his best to roll with the punches of stupidity aimed his way.

"And even better a day fer a defenestration or two, seeing as we got us neigh a plank to walk the scoundrels off'a!"

"Yeah… sure, Boss…"

"Boss-sama fer ye!"

"Sorry… Boss-sama."

"Yarr, get to the looting an' bring me some ale, lest ye be keelhauled through a window wi' the rest o' them!"

Just… just horrible. Please, no more.

I walked up toward the stage to get a better look. Tsuruya-san did indeed have a big three-tip hat like a pirate might wear although otherwise she looked like a rather rich but practical person from the Edo period in her black and yellow costume. For some reason she had a fairly impressive mustache she would twirl about occasionally, making it painfully obvious she was the villain I suppose, for the intellectually challenged out there in the audience. Knowing my school and the staggering amounts of dumbasses you could run into there, this was probably a necessary part of her costume. She stepped about the stage like she owned it, smirking broadly, pointing at things for her henchmen to steal, giving a deep bellowing chuckle every time.

"No! Please stop!" Asahina-san shouted, scampering to the stage to once again protect her precious sack of rice. She dropped onto her knees and hugged the thing like it was a first born child in the times of Moses.

I had to admit I was rather impressed by Asahina-san's acting. She didn't stutter or fumble with her words nearly as much as she would on average. But maybe that was because unlike in real life, in plays you were basically told what to say. You didn't need to think for yourself. While Haruhi had vigorously encouraged people to improvise their lines, Asahina-san had stoutly asked for her lines and then remembered them as best as she could. And if it weren't for her crimson red face, now squarely held against her precious rice sack, you would have thought she had no problems whatsoever with acting.

I actually wished I had had something to hold in front of my face when I'd been acting. I'd dropped my shovel when Kunikida had punched me and the thing had completely been completely lost and forgotten about after that.

"Yarr, this comely lass be surely mine!" Tsuruya strode over and yanked on Asahina-san's wrist. "A wench as fine as ye be right and proper fer a bed warmer!"

I could hear some childish snickers coming from the crowd, especially at the mention of the words 'comely' and 'bed warmer'.

So nice to be in high school, where childish things are put away and people grow up…

"Ah! – N-No! – Please! – Stop!"

"Buwhohohohooo…!"

That was her grand evil laugh? She sounded like a goose with hemorrhoids!

I looked around for support for my derisive thoughts but found only Haruhi nearby, come to see the show likewise, smirking at the stage with an eager gleam in her eyes.

"Should've come up with that myself…" the girl muttered enviously, practically spellbound by the show.

Sigh…

"Fortunately you're nowhere near as ridiculous as this anymore…" I couldn't help but mutter myself.

"Huh?" Haruhi finally broke away from the magic of the stage, looking at me curiously.

"This is just so stupid. I'm glad you've basically outgrown stuff like this in the year we've been together."

"What?"

I thought I could spot a light darkening of the cheeks in the dim light off stage.

"Never mind," I said, looking back towards the stage where Tsuruya-san was dragging Asahina-san about, proudly proclaiming her as her newest possession (or was she supposed to be a he in this play?). She kept going on about her other conquests, in duels and life, in betting and women, to such an overwrought degree you couldn't take any of it seriously soon enough.

Haruhi and I were both still for an awkward moment, before we both hurried off to make sure either the lights were working properly or the curtains were secured tightly. Haruhi disappeared from sight after that and that was for the better, really.

"Haruhi, hurry up, you're up next," I eventually had to call out to her. If her play somehow went wrong, I'd be blamed whether it had been my fault or not. And if it really had been my fault, I'd be in even deeper trouble.

"It's the big fight scene, right?" Haruhi jogged out from behind some props, holding a long linen cloth in her hands, smiling excitedly as she arrived next to me with an eager spring to her step.

"Yeah, time to kick ass and chew… whatever it is samurai chew. Bamboo?"

"I'll need to be blind of course."

"Huh? Why?"

Haruhi gave me a confused look, like I'd just asked if two actually was two. "How else will people know I'm a total badass when I beat the smelly crap out of 'em? I need to be like Zatoichi."

"…You know, you already showed up on stage and you weren't blind. How exactly are you going to explain that?"

"…Whatever, I'll just throw in some expository line somewhere," Haruhi said as she wrapped the cloth around her head, covering up her eyes. "Like a passing bird clawed them out while was taking a nap or I got blinded while fighting a blind guy… is that ironic? …No, not really… Or is it?"

I ignored all the stupidity being spewed my way and tried to continue the conversation like normal people might. "And how are you even going to get on stage like that?"

"I'll manage. I'm in character. Like the samurai I am, my senses are now greatly enhanced."

You are just so stupid sometimes I'm nearly laughing out loud. And no, not because you're funny, but because you're so damn delusional there's no sane response.

Haruhi's hands waved about uncertainly in front of her as she took two steps, predictably, a few degrees in the wrong direction. If I didn't say anything, Haruhi would bump her head very hard into a pillar. I'm actually a little surprised how long it took me to decide to do the right thing and stop her.

"You know you look like a total idiot," I said as I placed a hand on her shoulder stopping her just a step away from breaking her pretty nose.

"Bullplop! You're just jealous you didn't think of it first!"

"Seriously, how are you going to fight like this? Maybe if we had actually planned all of this, choreographed the play, you could pull it off. But we haven't."

Haruhi turned to face me. Although her eyes were hidden behind the cloth, I could still see the fire of determination of a thickskulled idiot shining through.

"I can do this," she said with such tenacity that she nearly managed to convince me despite my better judgment.

"Hey, you're already badass enough. You don't need something like this."

"Well, sure, but…"

"Trust me. The blind samurai is so overused."

"But… I'll be completely outdone by Tsuruya if I don't do something even cooler…"

"Trust me, there's no way anyone could ever outshine you in anything. You don't need some sort of gimmick to show off how awesome you are. You're… quite unbelievable the way you are."

"…Really?" Haruhi's voice was slightly softer now, not quite as sharp as usual but still blunt enough to break past any potential obstacles if needed, the question spoken with tentative bemusement.

"Yeah, you're one of a kind," I said, giving my eyes a healthy roll as I pulled the cloth from her eyes, revealing two bright eyes shining up at me, making me unable to help but grin a little at the idiot.

A soft, silent moment followed this obvious statement of mine that made me feel a bit uneasy for some reason. The way Haruhi was just staring at me left me feeling rather insecure. She wasn't angry, sad or even happy looking, which I guess was exactly why I wasn't sure what to do. Not knowing what was going on had developed from a mere inconvenience into something rather dreadful in my life in the year with Haruhi. It had gotten so bad that even little moments like these carried the same seed of fear as the night carrying an unconscious Haruhi through a dark forest had. I hated not knowing what was going on.

"Uhm – I gotta go. Show must go on and stuff!" Haruhi said quickly (thankfully!). As she turned about to leave in a hurry, the smile on her face could have put the vast majority of Asahina-san's lovely smiles to shame in its unabashed delight. "Almost missed my damn cue because of you, you dumb dolt!"

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that…"

…

Wait, if she's off to face the bad guy anyway, then what exactly was the point of that subplot with the Spirit of the Moon?

Sigh…

Leave it to Haruhi to throw in random stuff because it just happened to be cool. I mean, scary omen aside, that had been a pretty cool scene. But still… that girl had no idea about story telling whatsoever.

–/–Tzzzt–/–

'chik-chik-chik-chik-chik-chik-chicka-chicka-chik-chik!' Nagato clapped a pair of small black tiles rhythmically on the backstage as Haruhi slowly extended her foot, dragging the tip in a short curve as she settled into a wider and lower stance, raising her sword to arm level.

"Hohohohoo…" Tsuruya-san laughed with malicious joviality, like some sort of evil Santa Claus, as she pulled her sword back to the side of her face, until the blade was horizontal and aimed at Haruhi at the level of Tsuruya-san's eyes.

Nagato continued the clapping, and as the tension seemed to build, I thought I could hear a slight increase in the rhythm she was beating, like a microsecond or something, but it could just as easily been my engrossed mind adding to the scene by itself.