- Chapter 10: Something We Can't Buy -

There was an echoing silence in the room.

It was out there now – the whole truth, except for the powers wielded by Haruhi herself. Which might not have been so bad, except it was Asakura who had told her. I could only imagine the betrayal Haruhi was feeling right now.

Her eyes were on the floor, her fingers strangely flexing and unflexing in a pattern that I doubt anyone but her could understand. She had momentarily disappeared into her own world, trying to sort out the revelation she'd just heard.

Damn it! Why didn't I tell her myself when I had the chance?

"...Heh."

This amused syllable didn't come from Asakura. It came from Haruhi.

"Heh heh. Heh heh ha." Her shoulders were trembling. "Heh heh heh ha ha hah!"

Asakura actually took a step back, her smug smile turning into a quizzical frown.

"Hee hee hee hee hee." Haruhi was now holding her sides, struggling to get the giggles under control. Then she threw her head back and exploded. "BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Oh hell. I think we broke her.

Not even Tsuruya, to the best of my knowledge, had ever had a laughing fit to compare with this. To make the situation even more awful, no one was doing anything. Nagato, as usual, was exercising the duty to observe. I wanted to say something, but what could I say to explain without revealing the truth about Haruhi's powers? Apart from that ever-present danger, I had no excuse for keeping the fact that her beloved aliens, espers, and time travelers were real from her. And Asakura just stood there looking at her like a chemist observing an unexpected reaction between two solutions.

...Okay, so it's almost definitely for the best that Asakura wasn't doing anything. But this total inaction was beyond maddening.

Maybe I should just... apologize. I mean, even if it had been the right thing to do, I was sorry for not having shared all those adventures with her when she wanted them more badly than I did. And there had to be at least the ghost of a chance that she would forgive me, right? Or at least chalk it up to a case of me being stupid again rather than willfully stabbing her in the back?

As soon as her laughter died down to a dull roar, I tried, "Haruhi, I..."

"Oh, wow," Haruhi managed, still clutching her sides to keep the convulsions under control. "Was that... was that your best shot at putting a wedge between me and Kyon? That was the idea, right?"

Asakura put a hand to her jaw. "I do not understand this reaction. You find this... humorous?"

"Oh, yeah. Ha ha ha." She took a big heaping breath. "Let me explain to you just how stupid what you just tried is. First of all, this is all obviously a dream. None of this is real, so that means that there's still no proof that aliens really exist. But even assuming this isn't a dream – here's the funny part – Kyon already told me all that stuff. Like, ages ago. It was so shortly after I started the SOS Brigade, he probably just found out about it himself."

She smirked at Asakura's baffled expression.

"I still do not understand," Asakura admitted. "If he already told you, then why were you surprised at the way Miss Nagato and I -"

"Because I didn't believe him. Obviously, if this weren't just a dream, I'd have to believe him now. But that's not what's really got you thrown for a loop, is it?" She thrust a finger in Asakura's face. "You're trying to figure out why he would have told me after knowing me for just a month or so, when he still hasn't told you after you've been going steady for months." When Asakura didn't immediately respond, she pressed, "I'm right, aren't I? He still hasn't told you, has he?"

"He has not," Nagato reported. Maybe she could tell that Asakura would have lied.

"Well, it's simple." Haruhi spun and walked in the opposite direction, holding an index finger to the air like a teacher giving a lecture. "Kyon told me because he trusts me. He knew I'd keep that information a secret, that I wouldn't use it against Yuki, Koizumi, and Mikuru. Come to think of it, he must have been telling the truth about Mikuru getting kidnapped, too! Since she's a time traveler, there could have been two of her at the same time!" She sounded delighted and altogether pleased with herself at this sudden deduction. "So that's another time he trusted me."

And another time that you didn't believe me. ...Okay, that's unfair. No person with even a fraction of sanity would have believed either of those stories. So I couldn't reasonably expect you to believe them, either.

"That trust is part of my relationship with Kyon – in my world, in any world. Sure, he tells me lies sometimes for stupid reasons, but he always tells me the truth about things that are really important. That's why I'm sure he told me all about Yuki being an alien, Koizumi an esper, and Mikuru a time traveler in this world, too." She shot a look at Asakura like she was a student who had just asked a stupid question. "That trust means way more than some bare skin slapping against bare skin. So go ahead, tell me again about how you almost went all the way with Kyon in this world. See if I care. The fact is, even in this world, Kyon's still mine. He just doesn't know it."

I really don't care for your use of the possessive, even if it is disturbingly accurate. Rubbing it in that I'm basically your personal slave is pretty cruel. But okay, I guess that otherwise, that was pretty inspirational. That bit about me always telling you my really important secrets makes me feel pretty proud of myself. Isn't that what Sasaki said people in a serious relationship do? Maybe I'm already halfway to being in that sort of a relationship with Haruhi after all. She wouldn't call me hers right to my face if she didn't think I'd been appropriately romantic with her.

...Okay, keep your priorities straight. There's still Asakura here to deal with.

The homicidal lunatic in question looked lost in thought. "So even though Kyon is my boyfriend in this world, and has quit your little club, you feel completely secure in your relationship with him? You don't feel that he has abandoned you, or could do so in the future? Is that what you're saying?"

"You got it!" Haruhi chirped.

"But how does that compute with the emotional response of your counterpart in this world? She was clearly agitated by my dating Kyon."

"Not enough to kick him out of the SOS Brigade," she pointed out. "He quit, and that wasn't until you'd been dating for weeks. And of course I was agitated, I mean she was agitated. I thought even Kyon had better taste in women than that."

"I certainly like to think I do," I said, coming to stand beside Haruhi. "I was probably only dating you out of some stupid notion that it would show Haruhi I have a life outside of her endless demands."

Okay, I was bluffing there. But it could be true (and God did I hope it was), and I certainly felt confident that Asakura didn't know enough to call the bluff.

"That is a pretty stupid notion," Haruhi commented. "Having a girlfriend is a pretty dull 'life' compared to being in the SOS Brigade."

"I said it was stupid, didn't it?"

"And I agree. What's the problem?"

"But look at Miss Suzumiya now," Asakura protested. "She's completely despondent over Kyon's quitting the SOS Brigade. How can you still have confidence in a relationship that she has lost all faith in?"

"Ha! She's only lost faith in it because she hasn't been paying close attention. Sooner or later, they'll both figure it out."

How about that. Haruhi had more faith in pigheaded Other-me than I did.

"I see." Asakura gave a nod and a thankful smile. "I'm not sure I fully understand, but in essence, you have satisfied my curiosity with regard to what effect I may expect by revealing the truth about Yuki Nagato, Itsuki Koizumi, and Mikuru Asahina to your counterpart. That leaves one other course of action which I am curious to know the effects of."

"Well, that's too bad, because we're having a Brigade meeting here shortly. We don't have time for any more of your nonsense." She pointed. "The door's that way."

Haruhi giving Asakura the old "shoo shoo" would have been enough to make me burst out laughing if the impulse to scream weren't so much stronger. Haruhi still had no idea who we were messing with here. To be honest, for a second there I'd forgotten myself.

I was certainly remembering now. Ignoring Haruhi, Asakura stepped up to me. "There's something Miss Nagato neglected to inform you. Perhaps she didn't think it necessary."

In one sudden motion, she reached a hand into my chest. I felt a terrifying impulse to suck in a breath, only to find that I couldn't.

Asakura smiled. "So I'm informing you both now: Just because you can't touch anything in this world doesn't mean that there aren't things which can touch you."

I instinctively tried to pull away, but that just brought on a searing pain that my breathless throat had no way of releasing. I had the awful suspicion that Asakura had got a choke hold on one of my vital organs.

"Hey!" Haruhi objected. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Killing him," Asakura answered. "And observing your reaction to that event."

"Stop it! Let go of him right this instant!"

"I refuse. And there is nothing you can do to force me."

The frustrating thing was, that would be true even if Haruhi's powers worked in this world, since she didn't know about them, and she wouldn't believe me even if I could tell her. We covered that point during Kuyoh Suoh's attack.

I felt something twist inside. Asakura was sure taking her time about killing me, maybe to get the most possible reaction out of Haruhi, but there was no question that she was getting there, slowly but surely. I gagged, and a trickle of blood started running from my mouth. So even ghosts can bleed, apparently.

"Yuki, can't you do something?!"

"I am Ryoko Asakura's backup. I may not interfere."

"Are you kidding me?! Kyon's your friend, and you'd just let him die?!"

Nagato didn't answer. Haruhi didn't wait for her to answer, either. She looked into my eyes and, though my vision was going blurry and the world was starting to grow distant, I saw something snap inside her. She lunged forward and, for no reason that I could fathom, reached her hand into Ryoko Asakura's head.

The effect was immediate.

"Distortion." Her head snapping back, Asakura said this in a voice with none of the vivacity or personality of the one-time president of Class 1-5, just a flat reporting of fact. It was, bizarrely, almost exactly Nagato's manner of speaking, except that it was in a different voice and lacked even the ultra-subtle emotional cues of Nagato's speech.

Haruhi moved her hand around inside Asakura's head, as though rooting through a drawer for candles during a blackout.

Asakura's grip on my innards had distinctly loosened the instant Haruhi made her move, so I managed to ask, "What are... you doing?"

"I don't know!" Haruhi snapped back with some frustration, though I got the sense I wasn't the cause of the frustration. "I'm stopping her! That's all I know."

"Disunity. Distortion." Asakura's syllables came out eerily regular, like a computer voice counting down a self-destruct sequence. Her pupils swiveled around at random and at an inhumanly fast speed. "Disunity. Distortion. Disunity. Distortion. Disunity. Distortion."

"Shut up! Shut up or I'll just break you!"

"Disunity. Distortion." Her swiveling eyes fell upon Nagato. She reached out her free hand to her fellow humanoid interface. "Assistance. Assistance."

That worried me for a second. Nagato had already disappointed my expectations by refusing to help me – would she go so far as to help Asakura? But she stared back at Asakura and simply said, "No."

It was impossible to figure out what Haruhi was doing, and I'd probably have had no more idea if I could see inside Asakura's head, but I got the impression she making progress. As if to confirm my impression, Asakura's hand finally removed itself from my body. I took a breath of relief.

Asakura was now completely focused on Nagato. "Disunity. Distortion. Disunity. Disunity. Disunity. Request synchronization."

"No," Nagato said again.

"Request synchronization."

"No."

"Request syn-"

"Would you shut up already?!" Haruhi shrieked. "I don't know what you mean by synchronization, but no matter how many times you ask for it, she's still going to say no!"

Those words triggered a nasty thought. "Nagato, Haruhi isn't...?"

Nagato looked at me blankly.

"... using her power to force you to..." I stopped myself right there. I felt stupid for even considering the idea.

"Haruhi Suzumiya's power is being applied solely to Ryoko Asakura."

"Do you know what she's doing to Asakura?"

"No. Asakura's link to the Data Integration Thought Entity has been severed."

I thought I caught a faint hint of something in Nagato's voice as she said that. "Is that... bad?"

"...There is no human analogue to how a humanoid interface feels about the idea of being separated from the Data Integration Thought Entity."

"Ah!" Asakura let out a cry as she was released from Haruhi's grasp. She stumbled forward two steps, then caught her balance, stood perfectly erect, and smiled. In a single moment, she had gone from terrified captive back to normal. For a second that smile terrified me again. Then she said, "How annoying. Miss Suzumiya, you seem to have removed from me all capability of attempting to harm Kyon. Of attempting to harm anyone, in fact."

"Huh." Haruhi looked nonplussed. "Well, I'm not sure how I did it, but that sounds good to me."

"Does it?" The smile completely dissolved from Asakura's face. "And the fact that I still want to kill Kyon, does that charm you as well?"

"Well, of course not," she huffed. "But all I wanted was to stop you from killing Kyon. If I changed the fact that you want to kill him, that would be like brainwashing. And brainwashing is a completely unacceptable solution!"

Unlike, say, blackmail and intimidation.

"You wouldn't think yourself so merciful if you could see things from my perspective," Asakura said to her, and then turned to our bespectacled companion. "Miss Nagato, you have betrayed the Data Integration Thought Entity."

"I have not," Nagato answered.

"You are my backup, and you did not answer my pleas for assistance."

"You were not linked to the Data Integration Thought Entity at that time. Also, your need for assistance arose from your own actions, which I opposed."

Asakura paused, a look on her face like the one Nagato wore when she was "transmitting". "...I see. Because of my incapacitation by Miss Suzumiya, I have been judged no longer capable of spearheading the task of observing her. I am again your backup. And all you had to do was stand back and do nothing." There was now something in Asakura's eyes I had never seen before. It looked like... hurt. Even though it had to be faked, it was startling. "You did not even grant my request for synchronization."

"The request was illogical. Had we synchronized, my information would have been altered by Haruhi Suzumiya as well, and your individual patterns would have been diffused. You would have exchanged a few seconds of terror for a permanent loss of your self-determination."

"Please, Miss Nagato. Don't, on top of everything else, pretend that you care about me and my personal identity."

She brushed past Nagato, out the door. "I hate you, Miss Nagato. I wish I could make you experience what I just went through."

There was a moment of silence.

"Hmmph," Haruhi said. "She wasn't talking much like an alien at all there, at the end."

"I think she said that for our benefit," I suggested. "Probably trying to win our sympathy, and turn us against Nagato."

"That reminds me. Yuki, you're out of the SOS Brigade."

Nagato nodded. "Understood."

"What?! You can't... uh..." I faltered when I saw the fury in Haruhi's eyes.

"She was going to let Asakura kill you! A fellow brigade member!"

"I, uh, noticed. But this is Nagato you're talking about here. She's one of the most loyal SOS Brigade members."

"In our world she is. But this Yuki Nagato is obviously a different person!"

"I know, I know," I sighed. To be honest, I was pretty unhappy with Nagato myself. "But even so, can't you trust that she may have had a good reason for doing what she did? She's not our Nagato, but she has a lot of things in common with her. She took a big chance by helping us at all."

Haruhi turned her head from me, her eyes squeezing shut. "She... disobeyed… my..."

The door to the clubroom swung open. "Forgive me for being late," Koizumi said. "Nothing happened while I was absent, did it?"

I just looked at him with my mouth open.

Another familiar face peeked over her shoulder. Or I guess I should say, a familiar pair of eyes; the face was mostly hidden behind a face mask. "Um... Are they there? The... g-g-ghosts?"

"Both of them are, and both quite harmless," Koizumi assured her.

"Gnnhh... urk..." Miss Asahina trembled. "Oh... okay..."

"Well, shall we get the meeting started?"

You really couldn't fault Koizumi's timing in this one case. Aside from saving Nagato from being ejected from the group, he had in all likelihood prevented Haruhi's thoughts from wandering back to the question of how she had rewired Asakura's brain with her bare hands. I didn't know how she got her powers to work in this world, but if Haruhi figured out she could warp reality around, then this world, my world, and any other world there might be were all in deep trouble.