"Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, the two of you really want to fight me?" Akira said with a dark toned voice, "Very well I accept your challenge! Don't think I'll go easy on you!"
Asahina let out an adorable squeal to express that she was afraid of this, while Nagato's eyes narrowed to a somewhat hateful expression, "I would not want it any other way."
"Then I'll try not to disappoint you," Akira laughed as she seemed to pull a full sized katana out of nowhere. A strange sort of aura appeared around her as she began to charge at her opponents, Nagato was of course prepared for this, Nagato moved so quickly that I couldn't see her move at all as she vaulted placing only one hand on Akira's shoulder as she passed. "Oh, so you're going to play it that way, Nagato?"
Akira didn't stop when her attack on Nagato had failed, she was now headed straight at Asahina, "If that's the case I'll just attack the weak link!"
What the heck is this a scene from a battle manga? Isn't this completely pointless?
Asahina managed to barely avoid the attack by dodging left when she would have usually ducked. Good luck Asahina! Akira was about to sweep the katana around in another attempt to hit Asahina, however this time Nagato sped in and grabbed the blade before the sword wielding girl could strike.
Now by this point I'm sure everyone who's been reading up to this point is wondering how we got in to such a situation, or maybe you've already figured it out. Either way perhaps I should go back a little bit and explain... It all started when I came to the clubroom after school that day.
Haruhi had already arrived and was clearly pumped, this was of course because it was the first day we would be shooting on the SOS Brigades second short movie. Quite frankly the very idea of it gave me the chills, after all the last movie didn't exactly go smoothly, and this time around we had another troublesome person.
It was decided that we would be using the same camera, props and costumes (Akira seemed to have brought a costume of her own, a long blue coat of some sort and a pair of pants with crosses on the knees, it seemed to suit her pretty well) as last time, the only major difference was that this time Haruhi had roped Taniguchi in and forced him to be the camera man. Although not long after we began shooting Haruhi said that she wanted us to do the epic battle scene first so we wouldn't be able to complain about being tired later on, smart, twisted but smart. I'm sure you're wondering why this matters, well I guess under normal circumstances it wouldn't, but this is the SOS Brigade so the laws of the universe state that things can't go smoothly.
"Haruhi, there's no choreography... but you just want us to fight as though we really mean it, correct?" Akira asked an impatient Haruhi.
"Yes, that's the idea!" Haruhi replied, as she attached her 'director' armband to the sleeve of her shirt.
"then I'm sure you won't mind... if I make a slight change?" Akira began in a quiet voice as she walked so the she was in between Taniguchi and Haruhi tapping them both lightly on the shoulder, which was apparently a pressure point, causing them both to faint, "Oh my, it seems the cameraman has fainted, it must be this dreadful heat. Kyon you have experience in that field, correct? I suppose you'll have to take over for him."
Why not have Koizumi do it, he may be the lead actor but I get the feeling his role in this movie will probably be about as small as the last one, after all Haruhi seems to just care about giving Asahina screen time, as long as it almost makes sense without him doing much she's happy. See look at him, smiling as usual while he holds the light reflector, well actually he's not smiling it's more like he's glaring.
Reluctantly, I picked up the camera after laying Haruhi out on a bench. I wasn't really sure if Akira had done it because she wanted to keep me out of the fight or if she just didn't want to have to hold back, but either way she had clearly planned this. I couldn't help but wonder what other tricks she had in mind for the movie, maybe this was all part of her plan.
"With this we can truly fight without holding back, but it'll be hard to explain if anyone gets too badly injured or killed so let's try not to let the sort of thing happen, no matter what happens we can claim that either Yuki or I added sfx after shooting or if they wake up before the shooting is done that we set up an optical illusion. I'm looking forward to fighting you two," Akira smiled at Nagato and Asahina.
Earlier Haruhi had said that for this battle scene Asahina and Nagato were supposed to be challenging Akira and I so of course a little bit of amateur acting and that just about brings you up to current.
At this point it had mostly become a battle between Nagato and Akira, as Asahina was quivering in the background, with the way things were going I was sure that if I had seen any of this a year ago I would have never believed my eyes.
I really hated to admit it but from what I'd seen it seemed like Akira was able to fight Nagato evenly. As I stood there holding the camera I didn't have a clue who would win. In the past I'd never had any reason to doubt that Nagato could lose in a fight (of course fights don't really seem to happen often), she was always an invincible guardian, of course after the fiasco back on December 18th she'd apparently sealed off some of her own power in order to prevent something like that happening again. I'd never seen Asahina fight, but I'm sure she can do something in a pinch... probably. As for Akira, it should already be clear that she's dangerous, but she said so herself that she was greatly weakened at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to take on the rest of the SOS Brigade at the moment.
What was the point of this anyway? Couldn't they have just done some bad poses, say some cheesy lines, and be done with it like last time? Why bother having an actual fight, it could have easily been avoided so why did they waste time and energy by fighting each other seriously? It seemed pretty pointless to me, maybe Nagato and Akira just decided to take a page from Haruhi's book of completely purposeless actions.
After some time had passed they seemed to decided that it was going nowhere and called a truce for the moment. Haruhi hadn't specified who was supposed to win this battle, but since Akira was supposed to be the villain it was agreed that we'd pretend that she'd gotten hit by Asahina's 'Mikuru Beam' attack while she was so focused on fighting Nagato.
It was a little bit less than a half an hour before Haruhi woke up, as for Taniguchi... well we left him there and headed to the coffee shop. Haruhi believed that she must have collapsed because she hadn't gotten enough sleep, as she had apparently been working on coming up with a script in her head for the movie, she ended club activities for the day to go home and get some sleep. Well she did tell me that I would have to take the camera home before she left, but we all knew that was going to happen anyway.
The rest of us stayed after she left.
"The truce is over," I was the one who broke the ice cold silence that had swept across the table, "You said you would wait until after club activities today before you did anything."
"Correct," Akira confirmed, giving me an eerie glance as she said the last part, "There's no longer any reason to wait, or any promises holding me back."
If the promise you made to me cause you to hold back then it's your fault for making it in the first place, don't go around blaming me for your problems. I regret that I didn't say it out loud, it was a good retort.
She seemed kind of angry for some reason of course that doesn't really matter much to me, in fact if the person we're against is angry that means we're probably winning. Right?
Koizumi asked a question that I had been wondering about a bit myself, "Exactly what is your belief about Suzumiya, Mitsuki."
Akira looked at him with a shy smile, "I'm afraid I don't have enough information to really have much of an opinion on the matter, all I know is what Kyon knows up to current as well as a few things he will be learning in the near future, and a few scattered speculations at best. I can't tell you if she's a 'god' or whatever it is you lot are labeling her these days, as from the point of view of most people who exist in my world, you lot -and of course Haruhi Suzumiya as well- are just fictional characters."
I'm not sure I understand, could you repeat that, but say it in words a normal person would understand.
"My power as a 'slider' is limited, not so limited as Koizumi's ESP, but I'm unable to freely hop between dimensions," The slider sighed as she contained to explain, "I can only enter dimensions besides my own if I have a 'gateway', this is of course something that can link my dimension to the one I'm traveling to, for me at least the restriction on which gateways I can pass through seems to be dependent on the form of the gateway itself. I can only seem to enter fiction, that is to say any sort of fiction, whether it be manga, novels, anime, cartoons, comics, a voice drama, a newspaper article that contains few facts... there are many more but I'm sure you get the picture. So naturally this world is viewed as little more than fiction to me, just a story I'm reading."
Wait... so in the world she came from there's some kind of fictional story... about us? Well, I can't argue with that, actually, I can kind of imagine it. If I were to write down all the experiences I've had with the SOS Brigade it could probably be a best-selling novel, heck, it'd sell enough to fund the SOS Brigade (not that that would be good). I could call it The Melancholy of- no, that's a off topic, I should get back to the point.
"You won't be able to beat me, you may as well not try... I know that because I read ahead," Akira said with the same tone she'd been using up until now, "By the way, next week, after I return to my world, something really interesting happens to you guys, or I suppose it also doesn't happen... paradoxes tend to be that way. I wish I could stay for long enough to meet that girl as well, but..."
I interrupted her, "Who do you mean 'that girl'?"
"The girl you left behind," the strange slider said, "I suppose it's been a while for you, but I know you haven't forgotten her. Ah... to much foreshadowing would ruin the mystery... I was hoping to solve it, but I won't be able to stay much longer. In any case, I wish you luck Kyon. Continue to do whatever you feel is right, because whether you've realized it or not you're the key to everything..."
Who is she talking about, a girl I left behind? No one come to mind. What was that last part anyway? I don't get it at all. Is she even sane... well I'm probably sane not anymore so I don't really have much right to say weather or not anyone else is.
Then she walked away leaving me with no clue what she was talking about (she should have at least explained a little bit). In the moment as she turned her back to us I noticed something that I knew wasn't good, her hair was beginning to turn black at the ends. I remember what she'd said when she'd talked to me alone before, 'my hair wasn't originally blond... my hair is really supposed to be black,' so if her hair is turning black that must mean she'd already began sealing Haruhi's power right?
Crap.
That means that she's winning.
