The Lost Child
Asakura
5pm
The sky had become a neat shade of orange, the sun merging with the lampposts which were now casting their pale light onto the gravel pathways in the park.
"My colleagues have established enough influence to prevent some civilians to get in, but there might be one or two might slip who through the net."
"I have erected a barrier constructed of two layers. One whereby any non-combatant will experience a sense of uncertainty over particular aspects related to a different location at that precise moment, thereby redirecting them to another area until the duration of the active field. The secondary barrier is a physical wall constructed of high density molecules and atoms of the composition of air, thereby being phased out of visible range into higher spectra of light."
Nagato said the above without any shift in her voice, I found it hard to breathe after her statement was made with barely a pause.
"Umm, my superiors have told me to keep watch, we are not allowed to interfere any further. We do not exactly have any abilities other than that to travel through time."
"I can't feel any difference to our surroundings, but I do get the impression that Asakura-san is aware of where we are, and of our precautions."
I looked at each one of them in turn, Koizumi, Nagato, Asahina-san and Yuki, and thought of why they were here.
"You know..." I sat on the bench illuminated by the lamp above it, "None of you need to be here. If Nagato is correct, and I'm certain of given a specific incident earlier, then our defences will be nothing against her."
"It matters not, we are here because we choose to be." Koizumi spoke elegantly as always, "Remember, Suzumiya-san chose you to be the only normal human in the SOS Brigade, we can't have you suffering any injury. Also, I personally believe that you are important to her, and us, in more ways than that mere fact."
I sighed, it was hard to argue with him, though I did like to disagree often. I knew that they would all stay now, given how far we have gone together.
"Fine, so what do we do now?"
Nagato turned her head, "All bandwidth with the Data Integrated Thought Entity is now being dedicated to de-constructing Slider rudimentaries and matter patterns to later form retaliatory methods." She was staring at my face and blinked, "We must wait a little longer."
"Kyon-kun..." Asahina-san was pressing her hand to her left ear, "I think this is getting dangerous. Any information about this battle is slowly becoming less clear. My superiors state that though it may be Classified Information, even they are losing the facts from their own records, as if it is being erased from history."
"Wait..." I turned sharply to her, emitting a small 'meep' from her, "What does that mean, that this fight doesn't take place? Do we write ourselves out of history?"
She shook her head, that perfect hair bouncing cutely from side-to-side, "No, we are sure that the fight continues and that it does have a result, but we simply do not know what happens during the fight, nor the precise ending."
"How do they get this information? From history books, word-of-mouth?"
"Yes, but if there are no official records, namely secret events, then first-hand accounts are required."
I thought about the meaning of what she said and spoke slowly, "So, you mean that your account of the battle is being forgotten? And for all of us as well?"
"That... That seems to be the case."
It didn't look like we were going to die, but perhaps we would lose our memories? That is a bit strange.
Koizumi brought up a good point, "Is it not possible that perhaps information was being withheld from yourself at this point?"
"I suppose so..."
Asahina-san was holding her bottom lip, her brow furrowed in confusion. It was good to see her serious once in a while.
She glanced up at me and blushed, covering her face momentarily.
"Kyon-kun, don't think bad thoughts about me. I'm always serious when it comes to disruptions in the timeline."
She's right about that, I do forget this now and then. Not to mention that in the future she would eventually grow up to that age of hers which I rarely see.
"Unauthorised code execution in Sector C-12." Nagato looked at me, "A person or persons unknown have entered from the North entrance of the park."
"No idea who it is then?"
"Negative. The area in which the person passed through suffered a colossal failure and has been fractured. Unable to restore this region."
"You said 'code execution', does it mean a Human Interface like yourself?"
"Not necessarily, the mere existence of a being capable of corrupting and destroying code would be seen as using a form of code to gain access, even if that program was their own body emitting some exception to the rules enforced by myself."
"I've not heard anything from my colleagues, she must have entered away from their surveillance." Koizumi was holding out his phone.
"It's her..." Yuki stood in front of us, "She's looking around now, thinking of where to go, but she will be here soon."
"So, it's now or never..."
I got up from the bench and looked at everyone one last time.
"Koizumi, any chance you can use your abilities in Closed Space here?"
"Uncertain..." He held out his hand and concentrated, "I can ascertain that this particular pathway, similar to the clubroom, has its own field of distortion whereby several interesting events have occurred here."
His hand now bore a small glowing orb, almost exactly the same size as that when battling the cave cricket.
I didn't need to ask Nagato, I was sure that her abilities were almost at full potential, ready for anything. Asahina-san was out of the question, though her cheers would definitely help us all.
Yuki was defenceless, slider or not, so I needed to protect her.
Myself, well, there was no mistaking my stance as a normal human being. So I had to act as one. It's not like Haruhi would just suddenly make me a big damn hero for no reason, though it would be good to have her on our side this time around.
"Asakura-san..." Yuki spoke, just as the lamppost near the far end of the path going out one by one, barely illuminating the person who flitted beneath each one, that deep blue hair too easy to recognise.
Soon, she was at the last lamppost, with nothing but a pale circle of white keeping her in our vision, shadows between her and our own lamp.
"So, you're all here..." She held up her customary weapon of choice, "Too bad I didn't sever your head that time, Kyon..." Her giggles sent my spine into a rapid juddering due to the nature of her laugh.
"You're different..." I could see something was odd about her.
"My, how astute of you, Kyon-kun..." She licked her blade before bowing, "I have grown up, waiting to meet you again."
She wasn't lying, Asakura was taller, not by a foot, but a noticeable amount. Her curves had also increased to fanservice levels, not unlike Asahina-san (Big). That hair was also reaching to beneath her knees, longer than even Tsuruya-san's own.
"Looks like you had a hard time, Ryouko-san..." I smiled nervously, "How was that world of yours?"
That face remained smiling, but when she looked at me, those eyes were cold and cat-like, "You and your stupid decisions. Why you chose to leave in that way, I'll never understand..." She moved away from the lamp and got closer, but we were still able to see her figure in the dark, "Sure, you accused me, saying I shouldn't be there, that I was 'away'. I couldn't just kill you there and then, because you were not threatening to kill Yuki, and those were the only conditions for my immediate reversal into combat mode."
"You know full well that Nagato didn't consciously wish for that! Due to the problems with her data, some instructions or code for rewriting the world must have been corrupted and created you along with them."
"Oh, so you're saying that Nagato did wish for her new self to be a complete loner, afraid of people, as well as being an orphan of sorts in a large apartment building all to herself."
The path, just at the edge of our lamp light, was sliced up and a large crack appeared in it.
"That's far enough..." Koizumi held his flaming orb dangerously.
Asakura Ryouko just gave him a cursory glance but did stop in her movements, just the lower part of her face highlighted by the lamp.
"No, it was all because of you. Out of everyone, she chose you to remain yourself in a world which had changed. In doing that, she tried to keep you sane in a world gone mad, but was unable to give herself a good life because she was so busy protecting your memories and giving you a way out should you not have liked it. Due to petty emotions, she threw away her only chance of salvation and freedom by taking you into account, and you took it away from us."
"Us?" I had to laugh, "So, you're upset that Nagato brought you back, only for me to ignore your wishes as well. I don't remember having you a part of the SOS Brigade that she wanted in order to activate the program." I held my chin, thinking about it further, "In fact, you could say simply that she didn't even consider you to be included whatsoever."
"Shut up..."
She swung her knife again, a ringing sound echoed as the air moved around it, and another crack appeared in the ground in front of us, which made me realise that it was her and not Koizumi who did that earlier.
"The time for talking is over. Now I must finish it for good, so I can be free."
"Wait!"
Yuki shouted out once, startling all of us.
"Asakura-san, why are you doing this, why are you here?"
The evil grin was replaced with one of genuine friendship, and you could see the perfect class representative in that calm visage.
"Yuki, I'm just doing this for your sake, you know that don't you?" She withdrew something from her inside pocket slowly, to show a pair of glasses. "You forgot these too, don't you remember?"
Bringing her arms to her face, Yuki started, only noticing then that she had not been wearing them, nor did she realise that she had no need for them either.
"Come on, let me put them on you now..." She smiled bigger, but held the dagger in the place of the glasses now.
Suddenly growing scared, she moved behind me, no longer recognising her old friend.
Widening her eyes, Asakura lunged at us, only to receive a faceful of fire.
Koizumi's palm was smoking, and another ball appeared as he leapt to the side.
Nagato stepped in front of me and muttered an incantation, making the gravel to the side of the path levitate and turn into circular blades of their own made out of stone.
Hurling them at the smoke from the previous attack, the sound of the ground crunching again meant they missed their target.
"Up here little sister!"
Coming in to land at high speed, Asakura was diving arms first, the point of her dagger aiming directly for Nagato.
Multiple shields were broken through until at last Nagato retreated by stepping back three times, allowing Asakura to land into the ground.
The dust was thick enough for me to be coughing profusely, as were Asahina-san and Yuki. Nagato stood over the crater staring down into the hole.
A chuckle filtered its way upwards.
"Did you think I spent those ten years hunting for you in those parallel worlds for my own pleasure?"
The silver flash darted out, but that serrated blade was caught by Nagato millimetres from impact between her eyebrows.
She then began to bleed from her mouth.
Surprised at this incongruity, Nagato's eyes tracked downwards to see a thin and graceful hand protruding from her chest, coated in red life fluid.
Asakura had somehow done the impossible and had burst up from the ground behind Nagato and stabbed her with her own fingers.
I knew now that this was a losing battle.
"Nagato-san!" Asahina-san cried out, seeing the blood drip heavily.
"Nagato, get away from her!" I yelled, moving backwards with Asahina-san and Yuki behind me due to the extremely close proximity to the two fighters.
She looked from the dagger to me, "I am fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-"
"Nagato..." I had never heard her stammer, it was just like a computer looping a sound repeatedly when it has crashed.
"Oh dear, it looks like you've developed some errors of your own..." Asakura rotated her hand and arm inside the chest wound, feeling her fingers, "Must be some bad coding, even your blood feels fake, poor thing..."
Sensing something, Asakura pulled her arm out and skidding backwards on the path until she reached the small stream just opposite the bench, her left foot getting wet.
Koizumi zoomed by having just flung another fireball in that very spot, just barely missing her before she escaped. It looked like he was flying somehow, maybe this space was becoming more unreal.
Koizumi narrowed his eyes and began to throw several more fireballs at Asakura, dispensing with any of his trademarked attack names in order to keep up the pressure.
"That's it... Show me what you've got!" She was enjoying every moment,
"-fi-fi-fi-fi-" Nagato was still holding the dagger and hadn't moved a muscle, the blade appeared to be glowing.
Her eyes were angling slowly at me, the spark inside of them trying to escape. They then moved to the dagger, then back at me.
I understood there and then. Ignoring the danger and of leaving the other two behind me unprotected, I ran to Nagato and snatched away the knife, only then feeling the extreme temperatures of hot and cold searing and freezing my skin.
Jerking it away from me, I threw it far away as my own body rejected it, knowing deep down that it was bad news.
"Nagato..." I could see right through that horrid wound inflicted on her, the edges tinged with a green electrical jolts.
"-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-ne." She blinked two times. "Buffer cleared. Emergency reboot activated. Twenty seconds to full virus deletion."
The life behind her eyes vanished, her head slumped forwards and Nagato lost all muscle control, becoming nothing more than a lifeless doll as her body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Catching her before she damaged herself any more than she was currently, I saw that the hole was losing that sickly green tone to it. I'll have to admit that it is disturbing to see her essentially dead, not even her simulated breathing was running, her vacant eyes staring into nothingness.
I heard Yuki and Asahina-san run up behind me.
"Kyon-kun... Is she-"
"She'll wake up..." I looked in front to see Koizumi slam into the far lamppost, smashing the bulb in the process and finally leaving our one with the only light, other than his occasional fireball.
"Kyon, that knife, it's not normal..." Yuki whispered to me, she could see it in the distance somehow, "It's not just because it was from my world, but there's something else wrong with it."
"I know..." My hand still tingled from whatever it was doing to me, "Nothing normal could do this kind of thing to Nagato..." I held my neck, "It can't just be from your world. There's more to it than that."
Nagato's eyes snapped open, "Reboot complete. Virus purged. Initiating Terminal restoration."
Placing a hand over where her heart should have been, were there not a large gap, streams of SQL text filtered out and her body regenerated itself as her lips chattered that language at hyperspeed. Within seconds, her body was fine, even her uniform was restitched together.
"Restoration Complete." Nagato stood up, just as Koizumi landed in a pile at her feet, his arm at an odd angle.
"Sorry, looks like I can't beat her alone..." He stood up pained, leaving his broken arm to the side and using the other to produce his only offensive weapon, "However, it doesn't mean I'm going to stop either."
I saw his hair float as he too began to hover, and slowly he grew red. I don't mean as if he were angry, but literally his skin and even his clothes.
Okay, this is now so close to being a region of Closed Space it was no longer funny. This park bench may become a new altered place thanks to the powers from Haruhi and all the members of her SOS Brigade.
"Now, now Itsuki-kun, you need to play nice, or I'll have to up the stakes..."
Asakura leapt for that knife, left lying in the grass since I threw it, and the feeling of dread numbed me.
"Koizumi, don't go near her!"
A white line was all I saw in the shadows above me, the red shining body of Koizumi now disappeared, followed by the splash of red onto our lamppost, casting us in a crimson shade.
Nagato raised a soft version of her shield to catch the limp body of Koizumi, a wan smile present on his pale face.
"S-Sorry, looks like she cut the tendons in my legs." Indeed, his legs were sliced and his trousers were growing damper from the cuts, "Guess I'm out for the count..." Nagato immediately began to heal him, using some of her power for this purpose.
"You know..."
Asakura's voice was too, too close, and she was edging Asahina-san away from us whilst waving her knife lazily in front of her face. I was too mortified that she got through our defences to move to stop her.
"When in another world, I met this delightful man, kept calling me his harlequin. He had had this thing with knives too, told me how to put a permanent smile on peoples' faces."
I ran now, seeing Asahina-san pressed against the tree. No matter how many forcefields Nagato erected, Asakura just walked through them.
She smiled widely, the edges of her lips now appearing to be splitting up to make it seem even larger.
"Would you like me to teach you how to smile, too?"
Shrieking with fear, Asahina-san cowered in fear, and I drew my fist to punch that smirk off Asakura's face.
Just my luck, she was using this moment to bait me. That edge of her knife arced its way over to intercept with my face, and I doubt that Nagato could stop my body from dying after having it plunge into my brain via my mouth.
Accepting my fate, I closed my eyes.
Only to be dragged from behind, feeling the wind from the blade pass by my nose.
I looked behind me and saw the others all looking at me with wonder. This conjured up an interesting possibility that somehow I halted my own progress without my knowing, an innate ability maybe?
Well, no as it turned out.
I looked down further and saw a small white portal with just a single hand grabbing the back of my uniform.
The portal vanished and even as I tumbled backwards to safety, Asahina-san fell backwards into another one, only to land behind Nagato, Koizumi and Yuki.
"Yo, Kyon, looks like you need some helps!"
The casual wave with a silvery translucent hand belonged to none other than Tsuruya-senpai.
"Umm, Tsu-Tsuruya-san?" Asahina-san was confused now, looking at that odd appendage.
"Sorry kid, wrong ones!" She grinned widely and ruffled her hair, making our time traveller a little dishevelled, her confused face turning into childish whining as her bouncy locks were now messed up.
"So, you escaped a similar way, didn't you?"
Asakura was now livid that again she lost the chance to impale me with her knife.
"Not quites..." Tsuruya-senpai held up her special hand as she walked through our group to stand in next to me, "Turns out that I was injured when I was youngs and had a specials implant put in my hand..." She looked it over, "I was doing some research heres on this world. It's a titanium-caesium alloy, somewhats cylindrical also." She glanced at me here, "That's how I got that special code."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Asakura spat at her, "Will that measly sliding device defend against this?"
Her blade glowed further and now I could see why it was a problem. It had extended to the length of a katana now.
"Yes, I can see it nows... Whilst my own opens portals to the same Earths or to different realities, yours can also taint anys object or person to be erased froms that reality. It is also impervious to anys defences in the realities you invaded, and can only be countered withs weapons from other realms."
"Exactly right, my dear slider sibling..." Asakura mocked, twirling the katana like it was second nature to her, "I was planning on making everyone suffer, but you have made me bring out the full power to kill them faster." She sneered at the silver hand, "Doesn't look very powerful, so this will be quick."
"Uh-uh-uh!" Tsuruya-senpai tsked loudly, "While it doesn't delete anythings from one reality, it cans do something else special."
"Oh?" Asakura ran in, "What that then?"
Tsuruya-senpai grinned toothily, "Sending out an SOS."
Her hand glowed silver and four white portals opened up.
"Heh, as if that would st-"
Asakura didn't get any further as she was blasted back by a supersonic punch, a white beam of light, a flaming fireball bigger than Koizumi's, and the distinct sound of gunfire.
Asahina-san fainted, not because of anything that happened to her, but it would now be obvious to see why.
From one of the portals, Asahina-san (Big) stepped out confidently, her hair billowing from the winds of the sliding portal. She glanced at me standing beside Tsuruya-senpai and winked.
"Hi honey, did you miss me?"
"Huh?" I scratched my head, "Honey?"
Her giggle put me off track, "Sorry, got confused for a moment..." She turned to Asakura and held her hand to her ear, "Must be prepared. TPDD Achievement Unlocked, Time Stop!" A cube surrounded the katana-wielding girl, pausing her actions.
From another portal came a sassy girl, rather in-your-face and wearing the same uniform from our school. She had both hands holding a fireball each, but extinguished them for the time being at seeing me.
After checking me out, she pouted, "Well, you're kinda handsome when you're a guy, but sorry, you're not my type, Kyonko..."
"Kyon... ko?" Again another puzzle.
"Sorry, wrong name..." Upon my exasperated look she shrugged, "Yeah, I know, different reality, different chromosome alignments, infinite possibilities for further permutation..." Producing her fireballs again she hurled them at Asakura, delaying the latter's attack further.
Wait, was she a female Koizumi? Then she must be Itsu-ko, perhaps? I can't imagine what my person was like... Doubt I'd be very interesting, short hair, definitely nothing that sticks out like a ponytail or cardigan...
A small figure came out from the third portal, clad in a pale blue kimono and almost a clone for our version aside from the longer hair which reached the top of the shoulders.
"Kyon."
Okay, now I'm shocked, in all my time of speaking with my Nagato, she has never ever said my name.
This new Nagato continued, bowing to me once gently, "While you may not be my husband in this reality," She flicked her eyes to her alter-ego, "I will protect you all the same."
"H-H-Husband?" I reeled back, but at the same time was curiously intrigued. Meanwhile, our Nagato blinked three times.
She turned to Asakura and, it's kind of hard to describe but I'll try, she became an angel. An ascension of sorts, she was surrounded by a yellow light, a halo appeared above her and wings unfurled behind her. If you looked closely, you could see that these were made of SQL code, billions of characters in length.
It was then I realised that she was the Data Integrated Thought Entity herself.
"Extrapolating possible escape routes, boundaries raised, assigning attack vectors in quadrants A1 to G5." Her voice was different in this new form, a mature voice replacing that of Nagato's. Her eyes were also yellow, "Fire."
Blades of grass flew towards Asakura, who dodged to one side only to bounce off a data barrier, leading to have each one land true. She was panting at this stage.
The last portal was tearing up at the edges. Tsuruya-senpai frowned.
"He's angry, don't gets in his way Kyon..." She warned me, only for a crazy laugh to fill the air.
"So I was right after all!" A boy my age landed on the ground, a white straitjacket on, but one arm was free holding a pistol.
It took me a while to see who he really was, and I held my mouth, trying not to yell his name.
"So, who is it? Haruhi, Nagato, Asahina-san, Koizumi?" He ripped the other arm out of the jacket and pulled out a taser from inside. Then he saw me.
"You..." He saw the others too and realised something, "You're the one... I got your life, all messed up inside my head, I'm going to kill you!"
Raising my arms in front to defend myself, Tsuruya-senpai stamped her foot. "Listen here, boy!" She placed her hands on her hips and pointed, "They've got nothing to do with this. Asakura Ryouko is your target, she was the cause of it all."
"Asakura, huh?" He licked his lips, "I sliced her into seventeen pieces, and she's still alive?" Dropping the taser, he withdrew an identical combat dagger, "I should kill her again, just to be certain this time."
Diving in to the action, he started firing his pistol and lunged straight in to slice at her leg as she was avoiding his shots.
Tsuruya-senpai bit her lip, "The distress beacon chooses those who can help, members of the SOS Brigade, but sometimes, there are universes without one, and his was one of them. The message he got was muddled. Essentially, he lived in an almost identical copy of our universe, where everyone was perfectly normal, but believed he was you when you visited our world, and tried to return to his 'original' universe doing the worst thing possible." She shook her head, "I pulled him out of the asylum after his deeds. Despite everything, he was good at one thing..."
I gulped loudly, "Do I need to ask what?"
The green haired girl sighed, "Yes, he was good at killing and torturing people. I'm sorry you had to see him." Seeing Asakura take a strange stance, she opened a portal and stepped halfway in, "I have to join in. Protect the others, there's nothing left for you to do."
And there I stood, watching as a clinically insane copy of myself battled Asakura as well as the rest of the new SOS Brigade.
If only I could have predicted what was going to happen.
Given hindsight, my only wish was...
-
Author's Notes
About time, perfect chance for new Sliders, only they are characters from my other Haruhi fics (aside from Istuko, which just about every fan knows about), hence this is a somewhat meta-crossover.
Poor Asakura, or is it Kyon who will be sorry?
Next chapter will be crucial, and most likely the last, unless some more new details emerge.
- J