Just a Ghost from Another World

by Martin III

Someone again tries to transfer Haruhi's powers to Sasaki... and succeeds? The world transforms into a much more dismal place than the one Kyon knew: Haruhi is depressed, Nagato is friendless and distant, alternate Kyon despises everyone but Asakura, and the SOS Brigade is disbanded. How can Kyon fix this when no one even knows he exists? Updates bi-weekly on Saturdays.

9. Chapter 9: There Is No Bloody Revolution

- Chapter 9: There Is No Bloody Revolution -

"I'm not going to just sit and wait around for the SOS Brigade meeting to start," Haruhi announced.

"Fine," I answered, seating myself in one of the clubroom's chairs. Apparently the illogical exceptions to our insubstantiality also included our butts, so long as we were sitting. "Wander where you like. I can't stop you."

"I'm going to go find Kuyoh Suoh, and you'd better come with me, or there'll be a triple penalty for you when I wake up!" She strode towards the door.

Uh oh. Not what I had in mind. I shot up out of my seat. "Uh, hold on. What about doing this as a team, the whole SOS Brigade?"

"Sitting and waiting for the rest of them to finish up classes is boring. Besides, they're not really the SOS Brigade we know. They're alternates. Are you even sure we can trust them?"

"Yes." Granted, I hadn't met this version of Miss Asahina yet, and I didn't totally trust Koizumi in any universe. But I was sure of Nagato, and anyway, that wasn't the point. "They're the only ones who can tell us what's going on in this universe. Even if they weren't our friends, I think we have to trust them."

"Nnnngh." This little groan indicated in no uncertain terms that she agreed with me but was severely less than happy with the situation. "How dare they keep me waiting! I'm their brigade chief!"

"No, you're not. The alternate you is."

"Shut up."

"And on a more pertinent note, they set this meeting up with me, before I even knew you were here. You just got invited when you showed up. Sooner or later, you'll have to get used to the fact that the whole world doesn't revolve around you."

She mumbled something.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Pretty high on the list of signs of the apocalypse was Haruhi having something to say and not being willing to say it out loud. So I was pretty damn curious, but I also knew that what little privacy Haruhi did demand was very precious to her, so I let it go.

Besides, I had something I was much more curious about that had been starting to nag at my brain. "Where did you go after Mishima and Kuyoh Suoh attacked us, anyway?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I saw you fade away, and -"

"I didn't fade away; you did."

Whatever. "And then I was all by myself in that abandoned house. Where did you end up, and what have you been doing all this time?"

She shot back: "What have you been doing all this time?"

"I asked you first."

"So?" She plopped down in a chair opposite me.

"So that means I'm more interested in your doings than you are in mine." I figured if the logic of that argument didn't convince her (when did logic ever convince Haruhi?), its appeal to her ego would.

It took her a second to respond, which for Haruhi was a notable delay. "Well, of course you are," she said, in a tone which didn't convince even me. Maybe she was still holding onto doubts as to my level of interest thanks to that grocery store encounter with her mother. "But that doesn't mean you deserve to hear about it any sooner."

I didn't respond, just sat there rubbing my arms in an effort to keep warm. Obviously Other-me never picked up that space heater for the clubroom.

Haruhi started rubbing her own arms and made a discontented grunt. "Oh, whatever. I'll tell you, but you have to tell me your story right after, got it?"

"Got it."

She leaned back in her chair. "After I pulled myself together, I headed for home. It didn't take me long to realize that I was walking through solid objects and my parents couldn't see or hear me. Oh, and that there was another version of me in the house. That was what made me really snap back and realize I had to be dreaming."

Haruhi might live a thrilling life, and she might even be a great narrator (as I had learned when she read Tsuruya's mystery e-mails), but as a storyteller, she left a lot to be desired.

"Hey, I'm just telling you what happened, not giving you a bedtime story! Anyway, with no one able to see or hear me, about the only thing I could do was listen."

Yeah. Everyone was completely ignoring her. What must that be like for a girl who was accustomed to everyone jumping to action at her slightest whim, whose whole self-image was being the center of the universe?

I didn't feel sorry for her. She wouldn't want me to, anyway. But I could understand why she broke down the way she did. Not being able to lay hands on me was the least of her torments.

"And my parents were talking about my aunt Kanae's funeral," Haruhi continued.

"Your aunt died?"

"In this world," she amended. "She has cancer. In the real world she went into remission last year, and she's been fine ever since. I guess in this world, it flared up instead." She wasn't looking at me anymore. She was facing the window, and her eyes looked like they were wearily looking at something far beyond that. "My parents wanted the alternate me to come to the funeral, but she insisted that she had to go to school. I don't know what the hell is wrong with her. Aunt Kanae is pretty much the best aunt ever. Even before she went into remission, she acted like she didn't have cancer at all. Whenever I visited, she was always trying to cheer me up. I didn't appreciate her doing that at the time, but now..." She sighed. "I'd never miss her funeral, you know?"

"Yeah." So, Haruhi had an aunt who could recognize the melancholy she was buried in back then, even if she couldn't pull her out of it. I'd be interested in meeting her.

"You'd like her," Haruhi said, as if reading my thoughts. Yet again. "She's a real fighter, and smart, much smarter than my parents. I'll introduce you sometime, once I wake up."

"I might hold you to that. And, uh... I'm sorry your aunt died in this world."

"It's not like it's your fault. These things just happen."

Not in Haruhi Suzumiya's world. Not unless a certain someone breaks off his friendship with her. Damn it, Haruhi, did you give your aunt cancer just because I was being a stubborn jerk?

"Anyway, after my parents left for the funeral and alternate me went to school, I took some time to snoop around the house and see if I could find some clues to what the deal is with this world." She looked at me and frowned. "What?"

I scratched the back of my head. "That's a good idea and all, but weren't you just saying you would never miss your aunt's funeral?"

"Ugh, you can be so stupid sometimes. This is just a dream, so it's not a real funeral! Going to that funeral would be worse than pointless. It would be like I was pretending Aunt Kanae is really dead." She made a little shiver at that thought. "The alternate me is the one you should be outraged at. Just an hour or so later, she came back to the house. So she excused herself from the funeral because of school, but she was cutting class too!"

"Yeah, um... I can actually sympathize with her on that. Other-me got her pretty upset yesterday."

"That's no excuse. Classes are important! You can't miss them just because you're feeling low!"

So you say, but I seem to recall you cutting class yourself during a low point last year.

"I couldn't stand watching her mope around the house accomplishing nothing, and I wasn't finding any good clues anyway, so I headed to North High to check out what was going on there."

A thought struck me. "What time was this?"

"I dunno. Around noon?" She looked at me expectantly.

"Huh." I gave her a wry smile. "I was at North High until lunch break. We probably just missed each other."

That raised an eyebrow. "You went to school before you went home?"

Should I just tell her? "Well, see, Nagato is an alien, Koizumi is an esper, and Miss Asahina is a time traveler, so I figured at least one of them could get me started on the way back to the normal world?" It would make things a lot easier, and she thinks this is all a dream, so it shouldn't matter anyway, right?

...Damn it. This is like a habit that I can't kick now. "My parents weren't going to be home, so I didn't see much point. And I had the weird hope that I'd imagined the whole thing, and if I went to school I'd find you there, still alive." I made a gesture to hurry her past the point. "Go on. You went to North High..."

"It was pretty disappointing," she sighed. "The great thing about being invisible is supposed to be getting to hear what everyone has to say about you when you're not around. But no one was talking about me at all!"

Haruhi taking a blow to her ego was almost definitely a good thing, but I couldn't help but want to cushion the blow a bit. "Well, you know what they say: out of sight, out of mind. There was plenty of talk about you that morning."

"Well, that's something, but I wanted to hear it myself." A small smile came over her suddenly. "I did see you glancing back at my desk when you thought no one was looking, though. That was nice."

"I think you mean Other-me."

"Mmm. And it was Other-you who is going steady with Ryoko Asakura, right?"

Good grief. "What, are you going to hold me responsible for that?"

"Well, the me in this world may be hugely different from the real me, but the you in this world is obviously just a straight-up 'what if' alternate universe version of you. I still remember how you were always drooling over her."

Your ability to 'remember' things that didn't happen is really something else.

"If she didn't move to Canada, you probably would have ended up with her in the real world, too." Her face scrunched up in disgust. "Honestly, you have such bad taste in women."

There's one point I can wholeheartedly agree with you on. "Wait, what problem do you have with Asakura?"

Her face smoothed back out very pleasantly, but her eyes were flashing with a sharp defensiveness, like she thought I was judging her for not liking Asakura. Which I was, but it was a very emphatically positive judgment. "I don't know. Something just feels wrong about her. Popular girls like her are usually big phonies. That's how they get to be popular. Nobody is that nice for real. Honestly, her whole 'nice' act is just creepy, and I'm disappointed in you for not seeing through it."

A giggle cut in our conversation. "Now, Miss Suzumiya, that's an awfully mean thing to say."

I practically screamed and jumped out of my chair - and I have to admit that some sort of gasp probably came out of my throat - because Ryoko Asakura herself was standing right at the head of the table, even though I'd swear she wasn't there a second ago.

Haruhi looked pretty startled too, because she did jump out of her chair, but she didn't back away or anything as Asakura approached her. After all, she didn't know what a sick piece of work she really was.

Asakura smiled. "Are you sure you don't just dislike me because you're jealous?"

"Wh... what are you doing here?" Haruhi managed.

I had the same question on my own mind. Unlike Haruhi, I already knew that Asakura could see and hear us, but that still didn't explain why she would bother with us, especially when she'd ignored us before.

"Miss Nagato told me you were meeting here," Asakura answered.

Nagato? "That's a lie!" I shot to my feet. "Nagato would never betray us to you!"

"Betray? Why, whatever makes you think I'm your enemy?" She smiled at me warmly. "Dear Kyon, I'm nothing less than the best friend you can have... with benefits." Haruhi looked like she was as sickened by that innuendo as I was, if that's even possible. "But perhaps my answer was... worded misleadingly. Miss Nagato transmitted the information that you two are meeting with her here to the Data Integration Thought Entity. And since I am an extension of that entity, just like Miss Nagato, that information is mine as well."

Which amounted to the same thing as telling her. Damn it, Nagato, how could you do this to us?

"Whatever is that look for, dear Kyon? Am I not giving you the same benefits in your universe that you saw me giving you in this one?"

Haruhi folded her arms. "Kyon, what is she talking about?" The flash in her eyes said she already had a pretty good idea.

"Nothing," I dismissed. "Asakura tried something with Other-me after school yesterday, but she didn't get anywhere before Nagato showed up."

"So you were going to have sex with her!"

"No, Other-me was. I mean, Other-me wasn't." Stop sputtering, you idiot. "He didn't look like he was ready to go along with it. I mean, he practically freaked out when she started, um... What the hell does it matter to you, anyway? I thought you said you don't care what I've done with other girls." I didn't mean to lose patience with her, but just being reminded of how close Other-me had gotten to this world's Ryoko Asakura was enough to make me want to smash something over someone's head.

"I'm not talking about having a crush on a girl. I'm talking about defiling one! A member of the SOS Brigade should conduct himself better than that!"

"Is it really his standing in your little club that is important to you, Miss Suzumiya?" Asakura leaned down so her face was almost touching Haruhi's. "Don't you hold his personal relationship with you much more dearly? Didn't you, until now, see him as your own special possession, never to be touched by anyone else?"

Haruhi wasn't meeting her eyes. She just glared furiously at the window.

"Leave her alone," I snapped, wishing I could shove Asakura. Not that I could do that even if I weren't a ghost. "Hasn't Haruhi suffered enough in this hell you call your universe? Haven't both Haruhis suffered enough? What the hell are you trying to accomplish?"

"This version of Kyon certainly behaves like your personal toy," Asakura continued to wheedle away at Haruhi, ignoring me. "But how does it feel to know that that was just a fluke? That if just one little thing were different... Tell me, where am I in your world?"

"You moved to Canada," Haruhi answered in a distracted voice, still glaring furiously at something seen only in her mind's eye. Maybe me and Asakura making out. That image had certainly been traumatizing me.

"Yes, if I had just stayed here instead of moving to Canada... he would be mine instead of yours. How does that feel?"

"It feels like I'm a total jackass," I threw in. "And why are you suddenly bothering us now, when you just ignored us before?"

"Yeah," Haruhi seconded, though the look in her eyes said she hadn't completely forgotten the whole Other-me-cozying-up-to-Asakura thing. "Why do you care what we think about any of this?"

Asakura straightened back up. "I care because Miss Nagato cares. She decided you were important enough to pay attention to. There must be a reason. And besides... since you're just a ghost, I can experiment with you in ways I'm not allowed to experiment with the real Miss Suzumiya. You don't control the information of this world, so there's no harm in you knowing the whole truth."

A shiver went through me. "You wouldn't."

"And why not?" She glanced at me as she said this, then promptly refocused on Haruhi. "Miss Suzumiya, if you haven't figured it out yet, I -"

"Stop."

Just as suddenly as Asakura had popped in, Nagato was in the room, standing between Asakura and Haruhi.

"Why hello, Miss Nagato." Asakura put an index finger to her cheek. "Didn't we do this same scene yesterday?"

"You are my backup. Giving restricted information to Haruhi Suzumiya is not permitted."

"But this is not Haruhi Suzumiya. It is an unrooted, transcient artifact of a branched plane of existence."

"She may still be capable of creating and destroying information on that plane of existence."

"Hey!" Haruhi broke in. "Why are you guys talking so weird?"

"Branched planes of existence are not our concern," Asakura rebutted, now ignoring Haruhi as completely as she had ignored me. "Artifacts of such planes are at most materials for use in experiments. Attachment to them is misplaced."

"I have no attachment to them."

"That self-diagnostic has been confirmed to be incorrect." Asakura clasped her hands together in front of her chest, a convincingly emotional gesture for anyone who didn't know her. "Miss Nagato, when you transmitted the information that you have been interacting with these unrooted, transcient artifacts of a branched plane of existence, our chief concern lay with you, not them. While I have been experimenting with them here, a diagnostic was run on you. Your motives for interacting with them were determined to be the product of an accumulation of errors."

Nagato blinked.

Oh, man. These are the same "errors" Nagato said caused her to recreate the world, aren't they? Of course they'd happen at around the same time in an alternate universe. And if the Data Whatever Entity wanted to decomission her because of them in our universe, it figures he'll want to do the same in this one. And I can't play my John Smith card this time, because my Haruhi is just a ghost that can't do anything and other-Haruhi can't hear a word I say. I could have other-Koizumi pass the word to her, but he'd never agree to telling Haruhi that aliens, espers, and time travelers exist.

"In light of this," Asakura continued, "...and in light of my continuing success in producing observable data from Haruhi Suzumiya, there has been a reconfiguration of authority. Do you understand, Miss Nagato?" Asakura produced an infuriatingly pleased smile. "You are now my backup."

Nagato stared back at her.

"Nagato..." I struggled for something to say. I didn't have to be Nagato's friend to know just how frustrating it must be to be under the thumb of someone like Ryoko Asakura. "Listen to me. It doesn't matter if your boss thinks of your feelings as errors, or how low he ranks you... you're worth more than a thousand Asakuras. Do you hear me?"

I'm sure she did hear me, but her eyes remained fixed on Asakura, and it clearly wasn't me she was answering when she said, "...Understood. I will comply."

There wasn't even the slightest hint of resistance or recalitrance in her response, or even sarcasm. She would follow her marching orders, even if Asakura was the one giving them.

So that was it. Just like that, the whole policy of data organisms not messing with Haruhi and her emotions was gone. No big power struggle, no bloody revolution, no alien civil war with humanoid interfaces casting spells and transforming classroom fixtures and traffic lights into deadly weapons. Just a simple debate over information resolved through silent investigation, and followed by an orderly changing of the guard.

I want to say that all I felt was frustration and fear at the outcome. But to be honest, there was a bit of Haruhi-like disappointment at the peaceful process as well.

Asakura reached over and touched the underside of Nagato's chin. "Don't be so sad, Miss Nagato. We know you clung to this ghost of my dear Kyon because you saw him as your one hope of being loved in this world. But that is not so. We can love you more dearly and more meaningfully than any mere human can."

"Okay, seriously," Haruhi said, in a voice that made clear she had long since lost what little patience she had. "What are you guys talking about? You're talking like you two are..."

"That's right, Miss Suzumiya." Asakura touched the nearest chair, and it morphed into a miniature spaceship, drawing a gasp from Haruhi. "Miss Nagato and I are aliens. Also, your friend Itsuki Koizumi is an esper. And Mikuru Asahina is a time traveler. And what's more..." She again leaned her face in close to Haruhi's. "...your Kyon knew about this all along! He's been lying to you ever since you formed the SOS Brigade. How does that make you feel?"