The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 7: Slow Day

A/N: Anonymous reviews are the best. Truly. (long author's note is long)

Anon6: I took the liberty of fixing the spelling mistakes as soon as I read that review. The whole thing about the revolver cannon is it being based off this Mauser anti-aircraft cannon I saw at a museum. Originally it was going to be a Lahti L-39, but according to my timeline that would have never been developed due to Finland kinda freezing its arse off in private. Much wikipedia and googling later, and I found the cannon in question to be called a revolver cannon...then I said, "hey, why not stretch it a bit and make it be a literal revolver, with more crazy?" Thus, the terror-inducing man-portable cannon of doom was born!

Now, on with the plot!

Upon awakening in my bed the next morning, I was greeted by a rancid smell wafting through my nostrils. I climbed out of bed, attempting to locate the smell, locating it quickly, my nose leading me to my weapons, which I had left on a wooden table in the main sitting room.

Both of the daggers still had blood and various chunks of flesh encasing them, to the point that a small ring of blood had dripped down to the table in the shape of the chakram it had been resting on previously. I sighed, looking for something to clean them with. I went into the bathroom and located a small cloth in the closet, above where the bath towels were located. I soaked it in cold water, before wringing it out. Heading back to the table, I began to wipe the blades clean. The stains began to come out after several minutes, and in a few more, the silver blade of one dagger was sparkling clean. At this point Emiri walked out of a guest bedroom into the main room, fully dressed in a black miniskirt and a checkered red and black jacket that looked to have seen better days.

Looking at myself performing my cleaning, she began laughing heartily to the point of leaning against the woodwork so as to be able to catch her breath, causing me to stop and look at her with a feeling of annoyance flash through me I waited semi-patiently for her to finish, having put my blades down. Once she was done, she came over to sit on the table I was sitting at.

"You know there's a basic spell that does the same thing?"

Picking up the chakram that was more thoroughly soaked in human blood, and pressed her hands against its handle on either side, leaving the blade horizontal, ever so slowly dripping blood to the wooden floor. A faint glow of yellow began to emit from between her fingers, and she pulled her hands away vertically, leaving the blade suspended in a haze of yellow light. With a twitch of her right hand, which was on top, the blade began to rotate. Slowly at first, but quickly gained speed, spinning fast enough to hear the air itself being sliced by it, as it began to whistle. After a few seconds, the blood and other deritrus plaguing the blade began to fly off the weapon into nothingness as though it were being sucked into an unseen black hole.

After slowing down and stopping, which took an additional 5 or so seconds, Emiri closed her hands again, before swapping it to one hand and inspecting her handiwork. She then handed it back to me with a small chuckle and a smirk, then proceeded to hum a familiar tune in a low tone.

There was not a single speck of anything solid or liquid on the blade; in fact, it looked even better than when I had first taken them out the day before. I returned the freshly clean chakram to its place near the door, as I was not dressed in my daily attire yet. I turned to Emiri, who was making a motion similar to what Kyon had referred to as "air-guitaring", though he said it with a small amount of distate.

I snapped my fingers, stopping her from her activity, looking at me with a smug smile and an eyebrow waggle that even I wouldn't be able to miss. I cut to the chase, hoping to avoid excessive teasing.

"Would you be so kind as to teaching me that ability? You claimed that it was basic, so it should be easy to do, right?"

Emiri looked me up and down before replying.

"Sure thing Yuki-chan, but I'll do it when we're in the Brigade room."

I rolled my eyes, not taking so kindly to Emiri's stalling.

"And why not? It shouldn't take long."

She looked at me again, before laughing and pushing herself of the table, walking over to the door.

"That may be, but there's two reasons. One being that we have to leave for school in a few, and second being that you're covered in another man's brains and blood, and this technique requires clean hands."

I looked down to myself, realizing that I was indeed rather dirty by this point. My loose, white sleep wear was covered in red and grey spots, and rather damp from the water as well. I let out a small, but still audible gasp, which Emiri laughed at. I glared at her, before quickly retreating to my bedroom to remove the offending articles of clothing and put on my attire for the day. This consisted of what could be considered a tank top, but was sewn from a mixture of materials, mostly silk, and extremely baggy, dark green pants that were adorned with a fair amount of pouches and seemed to be made out of the same material that parachutes were made from. Also in my wardrobe I discovered several bands, rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other accessories. I was partial to a strip of 8 black bands, each of them closed with a screw of a different color, matching the main colors of the rainbow. I put those on the left arm, and a single thick white bracelet on the right. The white bracelet was actually a concealed vial of poison, as I had discovered, and contained enough neurotoxin to kill an elephant, as my enhanced sense of smell has remained, alerting myself to the neurotoxin contained in the bracelet in the first place, as well as the slowly decaying flesh from earlier. I finished with my attire by putting some of my hair into one strip that was slightly longer than the others, and hung off to the left of my face, coming to about an inch above my shoulder. It was a random move, but I took some comfort in it, as it defined me as well...me.

I walked out of my bedroom minutes later, looking more parts aspiring club DJ than I did super-ninja-assassin-dagger-woman, but I preferred the look. The clothing was vastly more comfortable, and the neurotoxin left me with a backup tool in case I was relieved of my weaponry somehow. As a plus, the holders for the blades were carefully hidden in the back of my shirt, allowing for less straps and other elements that hindered my range of movement. Walking over to the table, I picked up and strapped my blades to my back and calves, marveling at the greater freedom of movement.

Emiri looked up from the book she was reading while waiting for me, and smiled wryly.

"Nice look there |ain."

I just looked at her oddly. I did not know what she meant by Lain, or even whether she was talking to me or not.

"Pardon?" I stood up, the chakram swaying with the vertical motion. "Never mind, it was this DJ who was always around Cyberia a couple years ago...she always wore these ridiculous parachute pants and a beanie with a teddy bear face on it."

She laughed it off, getting up and throwing her book, "Seventy Four Ways to Kill a Man from 1000 Yards", onto the table. I eyed it for a split second, noting the lock pick on the cover, before we proceeded to exit the apartment.

Arriving to the the empty club room, Emiri wasted no time in showing me how to clean things with magic, which I must admit, will make things a lot easier, especially if we turn into a lean, mean, criminal murdering, loose cannon justice outfit. Which is also cool.

The spell itself was quite simple in principle, and worked on mostly everything, regardless of shape or size, though the larger the object and the more mass being removed, the more magical energy it required to dispel.

The gist of the spell was to maintain contact with two locations of the object, to allow for two seperate channels of magical energy to spread onto the object. Upon enveloping the object, it would become suspended in place. From this point, the technique of the second part differs from person to person, but Emiri showed me two methods.

The first method was the one she herself used and preferred. This caused the object to spin at an intense speed, during which a small pulse of magic is sent through the object, causing any foreign surface materials to be pushed off and be broken into infinitesimally small pieces, effectively disintegrating them into quarks.

The second method was slightly different from the first, and required more energy, but could be used on a much wider variety of objects. This required the same method of contact with the hands, but worked better the farther away the channels, in this case hands, were from each other. One channel would be emitting a positive charge of magic, the other a negative charge. Since opposites attract, and due to both of them coming from the same source, the opposites would attract with great force. This takes advantage of the extremely high wavelength that magical energy travels on. By overloading the object with two inverse magical energies, it causes the actual structure of the object to basically check itself for anything foreign, and due to the volatility of opposite energies, cause those foreign materials, in this case physical waste, to basically be completely annihilated, leaving the object in pristine condition.

Kyon and Koizumi entered in the middle of Emiri's lesson to me, politely moving to the opposite end of the room to allow Emiri to continue with our lesson after we greeted each other casually. This was fortunate on their part, as I attempted the first method with a dirty eraser, resulting in said eraser being flung rather forcefully across the room, stopping only when it embedded itself in the wall with a loud bang. Emiri had laughed out loud at this, claiming I could use the spell as a weapon if I did it like that, but I only gave Kyon a nasty shock, as it went close enough to his head to ruffle his hair, and rudely interrupting their chess game as well.

After sorting out the mishap with the eraser, we tried the spinning method with a dusty book, and it appeared to be that second time is the charm, for I was able to safely clean the book without killing anything. Yes, there was a bug on the wall where the eraser impacted. I feel sorry for the little guy.

It was almost second period before Mikuru showed up, sweaty and red-faced, carrying her longsword limply behind her, scraping it on the floor, leaving a thin line in the wood.

We had moved on to the second method by this time, which I found much easier. I could choose what type of path the energy took through the object, and by taking efficient paths, did not have to expend as much magical power as Emiri had first detailed it to entail. By simple coating the outermost layers with energy, the same effect was achieved, with the bonus of not taking as long to perform. I was able to clean an entire furnace of ash in less than 10 seconds, which was pretty cool, even in my opinion.

We kind of looked at Mikuru with half an eye when she walked in, but the sword drew our attention, except for Emiri, who had pulled out a deck of cards and began to deal for Solitaire. Ignoring her, I looked back to Mikuru.

She set the sword down on a table and had moved to the corner of the room with the stove, beginning to prepare herself some tea, when she stopped, and looked back at the rest of the room, catching us looking at her intently, in a way that was creepily coordinated.

She looked at each of us, before turning around fully and sighing.

"I was sparring with Tsuruya and TOM...you guys DO know that the first two periods are either extra group time, OR physical activities, right?"

Emiri flipped a card and coughed loudly. I gave her a dirty look. Rolling my eyes, I looked back to Mikuru, who was starting to drink her tea, looking back at us with one eyebrow raised.

"No, I didn't, and judging from their faces, neither did the others. Though I think Emiri did."

Affirmative cough in response. Typical.

"Anyways, what type of activities are there? Sparring is obviously one, as you just said, but other than that...?"

I left the question open, waiting for her to fill it in.

And fill it in she did. In her own special way. Which involved choking on her tea. Emiri snickered quite audibly at that.

"Well, you can go run obstacle courses out on the fields, there's a track and field club that meets in the morning, an archery club in the gym, sparring between students is in the smaller gym in the Science wing, and a shooting range for firearms practice is in the Engineering wing...there are others, I just don't know of them. Oh! There's a mage's club on the 2nd floor of this building, though it's a bit more...personal, than the others. That club is for practicing experimental spells...on each other, no less. Tsuruya claims its safe, but I wouldn't if I were you." She rolled her eyes after this explanation

Finishing her explanation, she resumed drinking her tea. I looked over to Koizumi, who was holding his bow in front of him and waggling his eyes at Kyon, who sighed and got up.

"I'm not going to go to the archery club with you, I like the sound of sparring."

Koizumi sighed, still waggling his eyebrows, which was in itself rather unsettling. I have perfect motor control and I cannot do the same thing he is doing...whatever that is.

"Fiiiine...how about those obstacle courses then? A little give on both sides, we both stay together, and no one gets hurt."

Upon hearing this, Emiri snorted, then laughed while picking up her cards. Putting them away, she walked to where Kyon and Koizumi were sitting, standing over them while putting her hands on her hips.

"Those obstacle courses would WRECK. YOUR. SHIT. You may have had some easy ones at school before, but these are straight up 'kill ninjas on a daily basis' courses, built by a man who does nothing more than just that, kill ninjas. There's lava pits, poison gas, spiked pits, automated machine gun nests, invisible traps, Tesla coils, and of course, the people who run the thing are adversaries for anyone who enters it. They go balls to the wall in there. I've seen one guy using an anti-tank mine rigged with a room full of corrosive gas. As soon as the room was breached, that entire room was blown to smithereens. They use that death trap to train for sieges on fortified, emplacements. It's the closest thing to a war-zone you'll get outside of going back in time and watching World War I unfold, well, pre-Necrolocalypse, of course.

Anyways, I went through there on Sunday with some of the NeTHaCKS, a small group of thieves and rogues, and I had to drag half of them through the second half of it. If there weren't any advanced medics around, that whole group would be deader than Shamisen at a mechanical dog show."

Kyon face-palmed at the last part, which I giggled at, and Koizumi quickly retracted his statement about wanting to do obstacle courses.

Mikuru, having finished her tea, walked in between the thinkers (you could practically see the gears turning in their heads), and stood next to Emiri, who was giving Koizumi and a surprisingly deep stare.

"Um, you know you guys can just hang out in here...or just walk around and hang out somewhere...it's not required to do anything, this place is focused pretty heavily on the groups and clubs anyways. The academic portion is sort of tacked on anyways, from what Tsuruya tells me..."

They both perked up at that, Koizumi especially, who noticed Emiri's thousand-yard stare on him, who leaned back in his chair to escape it. Emiri proceeded to stand up, grab her things from the table, wave farewell to me, and walk out with a clang of the heavy iron door.

I shook my head. She was quite the enigmatic person, even on a good day. Koizumi and Kyon both got up, grabbing their things as well. I looked up at them in surprise.

"Leaving so soon? Or are you just following Emiri...hm?"

They both blushed furiously, which made me ponder the implications of what I had just said, before Kyon pointed to the steam-clock mounted to the wall behind me and walked closer to me, grabbing the sword he had brought today, a large thick blade that was white on one side and jet black on the other, off the table.

"Of course not Yuki! It's just that it's time for us to get to class...or whatever you'd call it...class discussion more like." He muttered the last part quietly, as Koizumi did not hear him.

I gave a light laugh, which made him smile, before getting up, retrieving my own blades from the table and leaving behind him, closing the door behind me.

Though it made me wonder...what was Haruhi doing in the morning if she wasn't coming to the clubroom?

She had obviously been to the room and left before we ever arrived this morning, because I had spied a large pile of money, possibly over one hundred thousand yen, hidden underneath the other papers on her desk, along with a note written in Haruhi's own handwriting: 'The PerKill bonus for secondary bounties'.

I had known better than to disturb it, yet that did not stop me from thinking on the subject. I had a sinking feeling that Haruhi was doing something stupid, or dangerous, but most likely both, in the morning time before we met up with her.

To be honest, it doesn't really concern me, but I guess curiosity killed the alien-robot cat.

I meant me, but I don't think the expression works as well here. Well, I got my point across, and it's a definite: I, for some strange reason, really like this world. I know I probably shouldn't, and this is definitely at the expense of some, people's lives, but I am really just enjoying being here. The seamless blend between technology and magic is stunning, and despite having analyzed it multiple times, it is just as wondrous and magnificent at it was the first time.

The rest of the day passed much as the first one did, with the exception of Tsuruya not being there to talk to me, though TOM was, who claimed she "had some family business to attend to", which still didn't explain anything, or why she was gone and he was there. I passed the time in the room by practicing cleaning things, like the desk I was sitting at. It worked well, but it was too easy, so I started to put my hands on the floor and concentrate on other people's desks, and the effect was hilarious.

Watching one guy try to inscribe a word on the desk, only to have it fade before his eyes, made me fall out the chair giggling for some reason. It was most peculiar.

After school, I went down to the fields at the far end of the complex, where I had not bothered to go before, to see the obstacle course Emiri had been going on about, and she was wrong about it.

What she said about it was a complete and total understatement.

The entire field's grass was dead and withered, some of it still burning, ash floating through the air lazily. The entirety of the course was built up to look like a 19th century Eastern European castle, complete with battlements, high stone walls, and a large, imposing entrance.

To make it more ridiculous, mechanical beasts flew around above the structure, dropping acid on random parts of the exterior, which was coated in broken ladders and had multiple active machine gun nests firing out from the entrance. The drawbridge leading to the entrance was above a small lake of shimmering lava, which curiously enough did not set the wooden doors alight.

Standing almost 10 meters away, the heat washed over me in waves, and the acrid smell of burning wood, scalded flesh, and hot lead was wafting from the structure as well. Looking up the walls, a lone figure was still moving on the exterior of the castle, holding a buckler and a short sword, fighting off skeletons that rose from the lava to meet him. With a cry heard above the sounds from the machine guns, the skeletons flew back into the lava, having been knocked from atop the stone wall by a thrust from the shield. Pushing forward, he ran inside the tower atop the wall, when a machine gun nest started to swivel towards me, firing warning warning shots.

It certainly got my attention, as I took my chakram in both hands in one fluid motion and ran to the side of the nest. It tracked my motions smoothly and I spun my chakram in reverse motions, surprisingly deflecting the bullets to the side, but with each round I was pushed back, as the rounds were quite large and had a lot of momentum behind them.

I attempted to just run away from the castle, but as fate would have it, another set of skeletons had showed up behind me, their jaws cackling in laughter as they pushed me forward into the grindhouse, back towards the entrance and the ladders beyond.

As soon as I began to start taking the brunt of the force again, the fire rate began to decrease, and I could see the barrel sticking out of the wall began to turn bright red, before being pulled inside the wall, abruptly bringing an end to the maelstrom of bullets. Taking my chance, I ran through the doors and over to the ladders, jumping, planting my left foot on the 4th rung, and kicking off, forcing myself off, my momentum sending me to the top of the wall, past a few other students who were fighting skeletons and what appeared to be flaming golems on a lower floor.

I landed lightly on the top of the wall, looking both ways before crossing. Crossing blades with a skeleton, that is. Though since its sword was on the inside of my chakram, one tug sent the rusty sword off into the lava, and the skeleton dived into the lake after it in a rather comical fashion. Taking another look at the walkway, I spotted a ladder a dull shade of gray, almost invisible on the ashen charred brickwork of the wall, leading up to a locked hatch. I ran for the ladder while hitching my chakram to my belt, taking out a single dagger. Leaping onto the third rung of the ladder, i grabbed the 6th rung with my right hand, shoving the dagger straight through the hinge of the hatch in the ceiling, breaking it and forcing it up onto the floor. Using the momentum from the motion, I moved through the hatch and land in a cat crouch, ready for any threats in the room.

Seeing none, I straightened up, only to be decked in the back of the head by a heavy object, being knocked to the floor. Dodging out of the way, I rolled to the side of the object, seeing that it was a satchel full of papers bound tightly together. A single glance showed the outer papers to be covered in English X's and O's, along with being stained with dark spots throughout them.

Looking for the source of the object, I looked straight up. The ceiling of the room was had retracted to reveal a figure standing on a platform several meters above me, with several more bundles of papers on the platform with him. Dressed in a black robe, I could not discern who it was, only that small amounts of liquid dropped from him onto my face, eyes, and tongue. Tasting it, the liquid was sweet. Human tears.

Another package was thrown at me, which I promptly sliced in half with my daggers, which were now at the ready, causing an anguished scream to emit from the robed figure. With a yell, he pushed all of the sacks off of the platform and jumped after them, shedding his robe in the fall and drawing a long, serrated blade that was covered in nicks, scratches, and imperfections.

I had moved to the edge of the circular chamber, I watched as he stood up, shook himself, and revealed his face to be puffy with red eyes, but had a look of fury in his eyes seen unequaled in magnitude.

Except for that one time when I acted oblivious to the fact that I was playing an explicitly rated game when the rest of the SOS Brigade walked in. Kyon looked about ready to give me a warning, but did not, most likely out of fear that I would harm him, with my status as getting impaled to Asakura put me in special regard in his eyes. Enough about that however.

The crying man swung at me, allowing me no time to think of an action, and allowing instinct to take over. I threw my dagger upwards in a spin, catching his thin blade, hitting it to the side, and causing the man to stumble from the momentum of his sword to be put off by the rapidly spinning, but well weighted, object. Dashing towards him, I grabbed my dagger out of the air by the hilt as he stumbled and attempted to slash at me, but only led to stick his crooked sword into the thick wooden floor, lodging it quite firmly. Not missing a beat, he let go of his sword and spun around, grabbing my ankle before I laned, and held my aloft upside down. In a knee-jerk reaction, I punched him where the sun doesn't shine, causing him to release his grip on me and collapsing to the ground, allowing me to perform a handspring and land lightly on the floor. Turning to face my adversary, I could hear his groans of pain and saw his inability to stand. I grabbed him by the lapel of his ragged shirt and dragged him to his feet, grunting with the effort.

After studying the ragged person for a few seconds, I deduced their identity. It was none other than the school's wannabe womanizer Taniguchi.

His was pouting, still doubled over in pain. He started mumbling incoherently, but it resolved itself into speech quickly.

"I just wanted to show her I could create something worthwhile...unlike myself, I guess. I don't even know who you are...can you just leave?"

He looked up pleadingly, and truly didn't get it. So I made a move for his sword while he watched without making a noise, and I righted it, before hurling it straight into the ceiling far above. It didn't come back down.

I decided to add insult to insult to injury, because Taniguchi was never exactly polite to me, so I gave him a swift kick to redouble his pain, before scampering down the ladder while chuckling. The entire structure had gone quiet at some point, but the lava still bubbled slowly, almost contentedly. Upon leaving the castle, I looked back to see the tower was beginning to lower in on itself, before becoming a shorter, wider structure. The sun was setting in a myriad of reds and pinks and oranges just below the tower, so I grabbed my bag from the bleachers nearest to the castle, and left for home, hoping Emiri wouldn't ask too many questions about today's events.

A/N: A day late and probably not very good...oh well, better late than never! Had so much going on, I haven't even started working on something that's supposed to be done for Saturday...O.O

Anyways, next chapter will be another contract, I planned this one a lot better than the abomination above, so yeah...

Hope you enjoyed it, make sure to review!

Nihlius~