Chapter III: Shi-Dono
We found ourselves in the middle of a large baseball field. Kyon sighed as he saw the all too familiar sky of closed space; a cold, dead void that sat between destruction and re-creation. To him it was anathema; to me it was Thursday night.
"It's, this looks really familiar," Kyon said. "I've been here before..."
"It should look familiar; it's the Hankyi Nishinomiya Stadium. You can see it from your school," I replied. "I remember it well."
"So you've been here before?"
"Once or twice," I said. I studied our surroundings for a moment in order to get my bearings. "Come on, we've got to go. I haven't got much time."
"This isn't like it was last time she did this, that was just the school."
He was right; this was much bigger than any proto-universe I had ever encountered. Let me explain, Anthropomorphic personifications, like me have an ability to create a small 'pocket' universe within the universe or if there is enough of us making an effort, just on the outside of it. In either case these pockets are normally very small: the largest I've encountered was only the size of a small field hockey field. The Domain that Haruhi was building was massive, miles and miles of pure potential reality.
"No...This is unlike anything I've ever encountered," I said as I ran my hand along the edge of this 'closed space'(to use familiar terminology).
We had to be careful of where we walked, this universe wasn't well defined. There was no whole shape; it seemed to be more like a tunnel or a series of tunnels rather than a self enclosed universe. "Come on, we haven't got much time."
It's very difficult for me to communicate ideas and concepts, for me you just know a concept and then that's it no questions asked. For you there are always more questions to ask, comparisons to do, studies to undertake; always more things to learn. I can't properly describe to you what this 'Closed Space' was like because you have nothing to compare it to but after a lot of time thinking about it (and a small poker game between myself, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Diogenes of Sinope and Serge Lang) I think the best comparison would be this.
Imagine a bubble, either in the air or on the floor. This bubble is as much part of your world as you are; anything inside has a clear line of sight to everything outside however it is impossible to actually get inside without damaging...no, this doesn't work. I'm sorry Albert, Isaac, Diogenes and Serge, your idea's not working. I'll stop trying to explain things.
"So have you had any more thoughts on...this situation?" I said as we left the stadium behind.
"I have," Kyon replied. "But as of yet I am unable to think of a reason or a correlation." How does this boy even dress himself in the morning? "Wait...this shouldn't be here." Kyon said.
He was right. I looked around and realised that the whole geography of the city was wrong. The old middle school, the one that Kyon and Haruhi once vandalised now stood across the street from the stadium.
"Clearly," I said. "It seems that she's thinking about a lot of things."
"What do you mean?" I was tired of explaining things to Kyon.
"Doesn't matter, come on we haven't got much time."
"Why is she doing this?" Kyon asked. "Why didn't you interfere earlier...or when she was younger so that she couldn't do any of this?"
"I couldn't have done anything if I had wanted to," I replied.
"You could have tried."
"And so could you Kyon. I'm powerful Kyon, Death; the anthropomorphic personification of Entropy given form and even I'm a weasel compared to her! Haruhi Suzumiya, arguably more powerful than anything else that has ever come before and anything after her and she listens to you! Onlyyou and when you do something like this...she's warping reality, changing the fundamental nature of the universe, wipe of whole civilisations, collapsed galaxies, a thousand times over, and all this Kyon, because she's afraid of you."
"What have I done to makes her so frightened?"
"It's not what you've done; it's what you might one day do."
"What is that?"
"She's afraid that one day that you'll leave her alone."
"No!" I turned around. "I've done everything you've told me to do and you've barely explained anything. I demand you tell me what you mean and why you're helping me!"
"Most people tend to treat me with a little more respect," I said calmly. Kyon shivered as he felt my cold hand crawl up his spine and reach around his neck.
"I'm...I'm sorry, I didn't mean...I'm"
"This conversation is over. Come on," I said. We continued on through the Middle School, Kyon took little notice as we walked. I'm sorry for reacting that way Kyon, and by extension the whole of mankind but the boy is something of a ditz.
I don't know where the human idea that school is scarier at night comes from. To me it's the school during the day that you have to worry about, what with all those cliques, cooties, displays, lunch ladies etc. Once you think about it its better not to see the school at all. Of course HP Lovecraft thought the same thing about the ocean and he had a perfectly normal psyche, right?
"Look out the window," I pointed out onto the playing field. Though it was dark outside and hard to see he could make out the outline of the message that Haruhi made him write in chalk all those years ago.
"That's the message I wrote to Vega and Altair in chalk four years ago!" Your powers of observation simply astound me Holmes. Now if only you could remember the date. "It's something to do with that time in her life, before I met her..." I do hope your starting to pull this together Kyon because I really can't tell you.
I lead Kyon through the middle school onto a road, but not the road outside the middle school. This road was the main one out of town. We didn't talk as we walked, we marched. We stopped at one point at an anomaly in the middle of the road; a burned out, upside down car. We stood there in silence, studying the wreck. Wind started to blow. Time was running out.
I think that Kyon was starting to get an idea of what had happened but I can't be sure when exactly he became fully aware of the events that had lead up to this incident. His inspection of the car was cold and calculating. Suddenly he walked closer to the burned out husk and bent down. Kyon's face turned white. He stood up and backed away.
"Shi-Dono, what is today's date?"
"By the Gregorian calendar the date would be July 6th 2006," I replied. He stood there in contemplation.
"I understand," Kyon said. "We should keep going."
Good man, that Kyon. Use your loaf.
The road between the car wreck and the graveyard was unremarkable, smooth and quiet and there wasn't much room for me to move about. It felt like walking through a very large, very dry sewer. We walked parallel to one another, slowly in a steady pace. To be honest it felt like we were both part of a two man funeral procession. That's funny: Death at a funeral.
"How long did you know?" Kyon asked me.
"Since the time of the event, July 7th 2002. I first became aware that Haruhi Suzumiya was special last year, when my sister told me of a very strange congruence of energy building around your planet."
"Was that Haruhi?"
"No. The congruence was your old friend Sasaki however they're fundamentally linked, if you can find one it's relatively easy to trace the other for beings such as me and my...siblings,"
"Like two sides of the same coin," he said.
"In a manner of speaking however the better metaphor might be if you could pull a coin apart, two sides of the same coin torn asunder. Each half of them part of the whole and both of them suffering because of it."
"Sounds hellish," he said.
"Not for them, I don't imagine they're aware of the connection...at least until they come into contact and then you might see some convergence."
"What is Haruhi really?" I stopped turned and smiled at my companion.
"A young woman Kyon, your friend,"
"Then what were they?"
"The being that Haruhi Suzumiya and Nozomi Sasaki was, she was beautiful and terrible and she is, was and ever shall be...my best mate," I said with a grin. I miss the old days when there were five of us.
Black clouds crept over the cold grey sky. Weather here at any time was bad but to be honest I have to admit, at the time I was happy that I had personified with a sweater and a large black jacket. I wasn't going to say anything about the weather though. I was going to leave these two for their moment.
"Kyon, when we get there you're going to have to speak to Haruhi yourself, I can't approach her yet," he nodded to me in understanding: clutching the baseball as we walked.
Across the graveyard Haruhi stood over an unremarkable grave. I'm sorry for saying that, it's a lie. There is no such thing as an unremarkable grave. At one time or another groups of people have given their loved ones a burial, a long lasting monument; a testament that they lived. That's beautiful to me, it really is. George Fabricius once said that great achievements build monuments that will stand until the sun grows cold. I'm sorry George, but you're dead wrong. Life is its own achievement; its own monument that will outlast the universe. I should know.
"Is this it?" Kyon asked me
"Yes," I said. "I think you know what to do."
She didn't pay any attention him as he approached. She kept her gaze fixed squarely on the haka. In this proto-universe she wasn't wearing a coat. Kyon pulled his own school jacket off and placed it over her shoulders. She finally looked up to Kyon in recognition. Though she was teary eyed she smiled at him.
"Thanks," she said. He joined her standing in front of the monument. She tried to pull herself together, but he could see straight through it. I'll give it to you Kyon, you're a smooth operator.
"There's a tissue in the breast pocket," he said quietly.
"If it's sticky Kyon I'll push that penalty up to the 51st millennium," the handkerchief was fresh but there was something else in another pocket, an old slightly worn out baseball. She looked at it and smiled.
"Thank you."
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't Taniguchi tell me?" Her face crumpled up; not a smile, not a sigh, not a laugh, not a cry, simply unsure.
"I... I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want anyone to know. Right after it happened I just went back to school and never made much of a fuss over it." They stood in silence for a little while, neither sure of the exact thing to say, neither of them wished to break the comfortable silence. She smiled at him, and then hugged him. He didn't flinch, didn't say anything; he just stood there and let her sob onto his shoulder.
And then Haruhi was going to be fine, all was right with the world.
"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...what was I talking about? I just had this strangest feeling that I was suddenly somewhere else," She honestly couldn't remember; all the fury that she had built up was gone, lost in memories and thoughts of a black sky and Kyon in a graveyard.
She felt dizzy and so sat down.
"I'm sorry about today, and for yelling at you just now. Kyon, can you keep a..."
"Hey, is anybody home?" A man said as he entered the Suzumiya household. He was roughly the same height as Kyon but he was much older, about the same age as his mother if not slightly younger. He had Haruhi's distinctive brown eyes and a 5am shadow. "Or am I interrupting something? Should I go wait in the car?"
"No! You are not interrupting anything Nagaru!" Haruhi replied.
"That is Uncle Nagaru-kun, sama, sempai or sensei. No, actually from now on call me Nagaru-dono," He retorted.
"You'll be a dono when I'll be a general."
"Oh really?" Nagaru said with a grin on your face. "When you'll be a General, I'll be an Emperor!"
It was strange for Kyon to look at the two Suzumiya's argue like this; it was playful but Kyon could tell that it would get serious if neither of them backed down.
"Hi Nagaru-Chan I saw your car turning in and...er what's going on?"
"Tell her to call me Uncle and to use honorifics!"
"Tell him that I say no and double no!"
"No," Mrs Suzumiya said. "I mean, who's this guy?"
"Yeah, Haruhi-Sama, who's the slack jawed yokel?"
"I'm not a slack jawed..." Kyon thought. "My name is-"
"-This slack jawed yokel," Haruhi interrupted Kyon. "...Is Kyon from school."
"Oh," both elder Suzumiya's said in perfect tandem; greatly disturbing Kyon in the process.
"Haruhi, what exactly have you told your family about me?" Kyon thought to himself.
"We were going out for dinner for the anniversary, family affair you see" Mrs Suzumiya said shakily. "So erm...I'm afraid that you'll have to le..."
"Let me borrow you my work suit. It's a nice restaurant and you won't get in wearing your school uniform," Nagaru Suzumiya interrupted his sister in law.
"What?"
"Well that was what you were going to say, wasn't it?" Mrs Suzumiya read the look on her daughter's face and gave a small smile.
"Yes," she replied. "Yes of course. That is if it's all right with Haruhi."
"Well..." Haruhi said. "We can't expect to have to pay for him and off course, he is a guest so it's only right that he should pay for me off course, because I invited him..."
"I didn't even say I wanted to come," Kyon thought to himself whilst Haruhi concluded negotiations with herself.
"Kyon, are you even listening?" Haruhi asked. "Nagaru wants to know what size shoe you wear..."
Author's note:
Thank you very much for reading; I would be very grateful if you would please review.