Chapter II: The Bar Just on the Outside of the Universe

I, for lack of a better term am Death. The ferryman, I'm the anthropomorphic personification of the process of life leaving this reality for parts new. But when you think about it, really think about it you can't have life without death, they're simply different sides of the same coin. With that in mind then, yes, off course I've been to Haruhi Suzumiya's house before. I'm everywhere...I see everything.

The Suzumiya residence is yet another small building like every other house in Nishinomiya. There's a garden, which is home to a lovely family of slugs, four walls, a slightly dilapidated roof, two floors (four if you count the attic and cellar), a driveway and an old motorcycle that sits in that driveway as well as. It's all very nice to be honest.

Despite his insistence that he didn't have any idea where Haruhi lived Kyon was lying. The house was only a few streets away from his home. He probably knew exactly where she lived but never liked to admit it himself. It's all a part of him being an unreliable narrator I suppose.

"So," I said as we walked through the town, "How did you know that I what telling fibs?"

"Excuse me?"

"Lies, Kyon. How did you know I was lying?"

"Ah; you made three main mistakes. Selwyn college is a Cambridge College, not an Oxford University college; you called yourself Mr Orange."

"Henry Orange could be a really common name for all you know," I pressed on.

"And then there's the fact that you look exactly like Tim Roth." Bastardo. I just know that somewhere in that boy's small bedroom there's a burnt from overuse copy of Reservoir Dogs.

"We have a...agreement," I said "Tim and I. He lets me use his form when I have to do leg work and I let him use the pale steed whenever he can't find his passport."

"Sounds like a nice working relationship."

"It is," I replied as we entered Suzumiya's street. "He always cleans it after he's used it."

We continued on through the street until I suddenly stopped; without either of us noticing a large black fluctuating cloud had covered the sun. The smell of Death was in the aether. In the distance I could hear the distinct chorus of a murder of crows. Kyon stopped with me.

"What is it?" He asked me.

"I've got to go," I said. "I'm sorry but something's happened and I've got to look into it. I'm so sorry; you'll be able to handle things won't you?" He nodded. "Right, see you later. I'll be right back if anything happens," and then I went to work.

It's not just humans that I care for, it's everything; people and planets and stars and galaxies and eventually I'll be the one to turn the lights off at the end of the universe. It should be me, to be honest; I saw the beginning of creation I should be there at the end. Captain goes down with the ship, right? Well, Death goes down with the Universe.

I don't know how long I had been working when I suddenly felt a great deal of anger directed towards Kyon. I sped back to Haruhi's home from the job; the death of the first Dragon born on a distant moon of a distant star. A sad time, a job that I would have loved to spend a lot longer on but needs must.

I found Haruhi and Kyon standing in her living room, he stood away from her at the end of her finger. She looked very angry.

"I'll give you a brigade penalty so bad your descendants in the forty first millennium..." She screamed at him.

'Stuff' was swirling around her, forming, collapsing, swirling; it was all very mesmerising. I don't think Kyon could see it. Humans can't see much to be honest (poor you, limited to the EM spectrum) but take it from me to you as the gospel truth it looked beautiful; like the God of kaleidoscopes. I didn't have time to access the situation, she was going to remove him and that...well, that would have meant more work. I grabbed the idiot by his tie and made off for dear life.

I couldn't let Kyon stay on Earth; Haruhi would delete him faster than a speeding tachyon.

"Where are...?" Kyon said as we stopped. We were in the middle of a black void.

"What the bloody hell happened?" I screamed back at him. "I leave you for less than ten minutes to talk to her and you hasten the apocalypse!" I rubbed this form's head with my hand and considered what to do. "We're...we're in the Bar Just on the Outside of the Universe."

"But it just looks black..." Suddenly the bar took form around him. Kyon seemed to be surprised at its appearance.

"It's a personification, it looks like whatever the viewer wants it to look like," I said, exhaled lead him through the bar; to a table in the back.

The Establishment went by many names to many people; to the Norse and their Gods it was Valhalla, to the ancient Semitic civilisations it was Sodom (due to a mistranslation of Management's traditional greeting of 'Sod off!'). I use the term 'Bar Just on the Outside of the Universe' in recognition of the writer of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Before I met Doug I just called it THAT PLACE. Not many people ever actually see The Bar. Sure there are a few, now and again, but mostly these are people who have been caught on my coat tails and who need talking down whilst their body is looked after.

"We don't serve your kind here!" The Bar tender shouted at Kyon. He turned around to face the bartender but didn't dare speak when he saw the creatures face.

"It's alright Dio. He's with me," I said to Dionysus the bartender. The old God groaned and turned back to his taps. I lead Kyon on, before he incurred the wrath of nay more deities. "Don't mind him. The pagans have gotten uptight since the Abrahamic deity took over the majority; just don't make eye contact and you'll be fine."

For the higher beings such as myself 'The Bar' resembles a sort of cloud that looks like a bit like a multi coloured neon fountain with colours coming out of every...no, that's not what it looks like at all. I can't communicate it to you. The appearance for humans differed on a person by person basis. I didn't ask Kyon what he saw. We sat down. Kyon looked gaunt for a moment.

"Okay," Kyon said. "Just so I'm fully aware of this situation, just one more time."

"Alright,"

"Miss Asahina is a time traveller, Nagato is a replicant or at least the alien version...Koizumi is an Esper..."

"Yes..."

"...And according to you; you are the anthropomorphic personification of Death."

"Yes. Are you having trouble with all of this? I would have thought that with all your business with Miss Suzumiya you'd be used to dealing with powers that dwarf those of your friends..."

"Yes but that's different...first that was a black, space void then this is a bar...you are Death."

"In space, Kyon, no one can hear you scheme."

"What?"

"Nothing...Why is it different? You've seen higher beings than yourself carve out private realms within reality. I am a Higher Being and this is a private realm...just on the outside of reality...and it's a shared one."

"You're not very...Death either," He said. "For one thing you don't have a hood or a scythe..."

IS THAT BETTER MORTAL?

I'm going to be honest with you; I did chuckle at the sight of Kyon panicking at the sight of me wearing that old Halloween.

"I can appear in that form; and in many cases I do," I said as I set the scythe down onto the table. "But I thought that it would be very diplomatically if I appeared in the guise of my good friend Tim Roth."

"Alright," He replied. "So why did you lie to my sister?"

"Because 'Kyon' lying is a skill like any other and like any other must be practiced if you're ever going to get good at it," I said. "Now tell me what happened..."

Another entity suddenly appeared, a human soul but not like Kyon's; a dead one. I don't know where it came from or how it got here but I didn't think it meant Kyon any harm. It floated over to our table whilst the other patrons looked on.

"What the?"

"Don't touch it," I told Kyon. "It doesn't mean us any harm."

"How do you know?"

"It can't hurt me and I have no intention of taking your soul so what's the problem?" Vulcan level logic if I do say so myself. "Look."

Out of the mass of darkness that was this displaced soul a baseball appeared. It hovered in the air for a moment within the creature before dropping onto the table without a bounce. I looked up at the soul and nodded at him.

"What is it?" Kyon asked.

"It's a baseball Kyon, do try to keep up,"

"No I mean what was that...thing?"

"It's a Soul Kyon, a Human Soul," I replied.

"Why did it drop a baseball?"

"It's a clue for you," I said. "To help you figure out why Miss Suzumiya is so upset."

"But not for you?" He asked.

"No, I already know."

"And you're not going to tell me?"

"No"

"That's not fair."

I think the boy doth protest too much.

THERE IS NO FAIR, THERE IS ONLY ME, I said, quite fairly if I do say so myself. "ENOUGH of these distractions what happened in there?"

He tried to describe the events that followed my departure. I'm not going to repeat the description that he gave me because I suspect that most of it was downright lies. Instead I'm going to tell you what I think really happened.

Kyon took twenty seven steps on the way to Haruhi's house, he knew how many steps there were because he was subconsciously counting them He'd been here before; this street, well not this street but the parallel one that had existed in Nagato's sub-universe. He wondered if Haruhi lived in that house in Nagato's universe, or even on that street. He remembered the house being much cleaner on the outside in the other dimension, with a newer coat of paint and two cars instead of one motorcycle. Despite the clutter of the house's outward appearance he had to admit it was very Haruhi, especially the motorcycle. The door gave a satisfying knock.

"Don't bother taking your shoes off Nagaru, I'll be right down," she shouted out of her window. She looked out of her window and sighed. "Oh, it's you."

"Yo," Kyon said.

"What do you want?"

"You weren't at the brigade meeting today. I erm...erm...erm, I wanted to read you the minutes," He lied, badly.

"Oh...good," She said. "Come into the living room, take off your shoes. Don't sit on the couch I just cleaned it. If mom comes in just lie and tell her that your my boyfriend. She doesn't know about the SOS Dan"

"Okay,"

The Suzumiya living room was most definitely not what he had expected, but then again he had expected something that he hadn't expected; yellow walls, an old brown leather couch, two old green A small photograph on the wall caught his attention; a small, 12 year old Haruhi Suzumiya stood in the centre with her arms around her mother and father. It looked like they were at a baseball field, somewhere, they looked happy. Kyon smiled at the picture.

"So what happened?" Kyon turned to see Haruhi, who stood in the living rooms doorway. She looked nice, dressed to impress but angry as well. "Step away from that picture Kyon."

Kyon did so; she marched up to him. Kyon thought that she was going to walk right through him but she suddenly stopped. It wasn't that she ordered him to step away from the photograph, it was in the manner in which she had done it. He'd seen her annoyed and melancholic before but this time she was angry, furious even. Haruhi closely inspected the photograph.

"Thank you for not touching it," she said begrudgingly. "Now tell me what happened and be quick about it or I'm going to be late."

"Why weren't you at the brigade meeting today?" She looked at him for a moment, her face scrunched up unsure of whether to be happy or sad or vengeful. Then she snapped.

"That's none of your business Kyon! What are you even doing here? You didn't even take notes from the SOS Dan meeting did you? Oh, that's it Kyon. You've woken the dragon! How dare you ask me...Your brigade chief what I'm doing in my own damned time! I should have you whipped!" She raised her arm and pointed her finger at him. "I'll give you a brigade penalty so bad your descendants in the forty first millennium, the ones living on Phobos will still be doing work to make up for this. If I...I...I...Kyon?" He was gone, clutched by Death. Before she realised it Haruhi had already begun to warp reality.

"So that's what happened?" I asked Kyon. Nemesis brought us our drinks. I looked at her and smiled. "Thanks dear," I said. She looked down at the given tip and smirked; charming woman. I always thought two coins was customary for Greeks?

"Yes; I asked why she wasn't in the meeting and she jumped down my throat, " Kyon replied. "Is this safe to drink? I mean, it is from...here."

"What did you order?"

"Lemonade,"

"Don't let it touch your tongue," I replied. "Just...don't. Anyway, we're getting off topic again. This is bad, very bad. We had a day to avert the event but now we probably have less than an hour."

"Then why are we here?"

"Because she was going to erase you and I needed time to think," I replied. "Okay, I think we're going about this all wrong. I know what's bothering Haruhi, I also know that you are the only one that Haruhi really wants to talk to about said problem. Do you get me?"

"Why would Haruhi..."

"I can't believe I have to communicate in this fashion." I said quickly 'under my breath'. "Do you remember last December when you "woke up" from that "Coma" and Haruhi had been next to you those entire three days?"

"Yes, because she felt guilty about..."

NO! I stood up in anger. The assembled Higher Beings around the bar suddenly turned their attention to us. THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND! WHY WERE YOU CHOSEN TO FOUND THAT CLUB OF YOURS? WHY DID SHE PULL YOU INTO HER DOMAIN THE LAST TIME SHE DID THIS?

"Because she...she...she..."

"You know exactly why she always calls you," I said.

Suddenly I felt a buzz travel down this form's spine. "Kyon, There isn't much time. I've got to return to Earth before it happens. If your friend Koizumi is right and the Universe is about to lose its God then it will also lose its Death. There's only one last chance if you want to keep the world that you know. I can't tell you anymore than I already have, you're going to have to figure out the rest for yourself. We have to go home, now!"

And then the Bar was gone, and we were back in our original dimension, or what Haruhi's fury would turn it into.

Author's Notes: Originally the bolded parts were supposed to be in small caps in the style of Terry Pratchett's Death in order to signify to the audience that Death was in his 'cloak and scythe' mode however formatting seems to have messed that up somewhat so I've just embolded those parts so that your aware of where they should be.

Thank you very much for reading; I would be very grateful if you would please review.