The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (5 page)

Mikuru smiled her fluorescent-pink sunflower smile. “Th-thank
you! I’m doing my best!” she replied brightly, her innocent charm shining out into the shopping district.

Then she spoke again, her words a spell with the magical ability to transform a household’s menu from whatever had been planned into cabbage stew.

“Supplies are limited! Get them while they last!”

The grocery store was immediately swarmed, and soon every last head of cabbage had been sold.

Mikuru was then called into the rear of the store by the manager, Mr. Kiyosumi Morimura (age forty-six), who gave her an envelope containing her day’s pay.

“Thank you again. This isn’t much, but please take it.”

Mr. Morimura’s wrinkled, careworn face was lowered as Mikuru accepted the money from his strong hand.

“Oh, not at all. I’m the one who should thank you. This is all I can do, after all…”

Mikuru, being a faithfully polite girl, bowed deeply. She then tucked the envelope into her ample bosom.

“Well then, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off to the butcher’s. Good-bye!”

Carrying her signboard, Mikuru trotted off through the shopping district. Truly, she had become an irreplaceable mascot for the district, beloved by all.

Best of luck to you, Mikuru! Take back the customers stolen by the giant store that opened last year! The revitalization of the local mom-and-pop stores rests on your shoulders!

One can’t help but want to shout such exhortations to her.

However, Mikuru did not travel back in time just to rescue a declining shopping district from ruin. Her bunny outfit was a cover; we mustn’t forget that her true identity was that of a combat waitress. It really doesn’t matter either way, but that’s the way it is, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

So, then—Mikuru’s true purpose, her mission, was to secretly protect a certain young man.

That young man’s name was none other than Itsuki Koizumi, who might seem like a completely ordinary high school student, but who was actually an esper. I’m sure it goes without saying that any resemblance this person might bear to anybody else named Itsuki Koizumi is entirely coincidental.

Now, although he was an esper, Itsuki Koizumi himself was unaware of that fact. Evidently it would take some sort of trigger to awaken the supernatural power within him, but for now, that power lay dormant for his own safety, and from both a subjective and an objective perspective, his life was no different from an ordinary high school student’s.

Today, like any other day, Itsuki Koizumi wore his backpack and a carefree smile as he walked home from school. His path took him right down the main street of this shopping district.

“…”

A shadowy figure secretly watched Itsuki’s receding form. From the two long ears that protruded from the figure’s head and its nearly-naked-seeming silhouette, even a fool could tell it was Mikuru. You might wonder why she would be stealthily following someone while wearing that outfit, but keep in mind it was her usual clothing, and thus could hardly be helped.

“Whew.”

Mikuru sighed, apparently relieved that Itsuki seemed to be safe. Her sigh also seemed like the sound a younger student would make while gazing longingly at the dreamy upperclassman she has a crush on, but such thoughts are infuriating, so we’ll ignore this latter possibility.

After watching Itsuki go, Mikuru took her sign, complete with
Beef Skirt, 98 Yen/100g (heart symbol, original drawing of a cow)
written in Magic Marker on it, and walked in the opposite
direction from Itsuki’s, heading to her next job, looking a bit dejected as she went.

Having nodded in response to the many greetings that were directed at her on the way, she finally arrived at her destination, which was a dim little stationery shop. The shopkeeper, one Mr. Yusuke Suzuki (age sixty-five), was the head of the local merchants’ council, and he furnished Mikuru with her current lodgings.

“Welcome back, Mikuru. Are you tired?”

Mr. Suzuki greeted Mikuru with a kindly smile, though his intonation was strangely wooden.

“Um, I’m fine. There were lots of customers, and… business was… um, what was it… oh yes, booming.”

“Well, that’s good.”

Mikuru gave Mr. Suzuki a bow, then climbed the shop’s steep stairs to get to her room. At the end of the short hallway was her residence in this time period: a small Japanese-style bedroom.

Mr. Suzuki lived elsewhere, so this room had been vacant. I’m not sure exactly what the process had been, but in any case, Mikuru had come to live here after arriving from the future.

After sliding the door to the room closed, Mikuru began to take off her bunny girl outfit. Unfortunately, this scene was cut. In the next scene, she wore a baggy T-shirt as she climbed into her futon—then that scene, too, ended.

Meanwhile, another pair of eyes gazed thoughtfully upon Itsuki Koizumi.

They belonged to a girl named Yuki Nagato. She hardly looked like a normal schoolgirl, and small wonder, for she was actually an evil alien sorceress. You could easily guess as much, for she wore a cape and a wide-brimmed pointed hat—both well outside modern clothing standards. Incidentally, any resemblance
she bears to anyone else named Yuki Nagato is completely coincidental, and this explanation is starting to get really old.

“…”

Yuki stood upon the rooftop of the school, her face not betraying a single emotion. This was the school that Itsuki attended, and although this was no doubt intended as a scene to show that she also had some sort of intention toward him, given the sequence of events, Itsuki had long since gone home, leaving Yuki standing there atop the unoccupied school, making the cut to this scene difficult to understand.

The previous scene was shot around sunset, yet from the position of the sun in the southern sky above Yuki’s head, it now seemed to be the height of midday, which unambiguously led to the conclusion that this scene had been shot during a lunch break. One can imagine how the director’s insistence on filming with a total disregard for logical sequence must have given the editor endless headaches.

That trend held true for the subsequent narrative.

Because of time constraints, Mikuru and Yuki entered their first confrontation without so much as a single explanation for why this might be happening.

After Mikuru ran pointlessly through a flock of pigeons at a shrine, the scene shifted to what seemed to be a forested park.

She, of course, was no longer dressed as a bunny girl, but instead as a waitress whose skirt was far too short. Mikuru, her hair tied up in pigtails and wearing an outfit that did amazing things for her assets, gripped a heavy-looking automatic pistol in each hand. Her face wore a sympathy-inspiring expression of tremulous resignation—and this was not an expression she’d been told to assume, but rather a reflection of her true feelings.

Meanwhile, the black-clad Yuki Nagato betrayed no emotion at
all; she just stood there, motionless, holding a magic wand tipped with a star.

The two girls faced each other. It was no doubt intended to be a deadly face-off, but the encounter was too tame to be called as much, perhaps because Mikuru seemed to have nervously judged her own chances of winning such an encounter to be rather slim.

“Yah!”

Mikuru squeezed her eyes shut and aimed her guns blindly as she pulled the triggers in rapid succession. The small pellets came shooting out of the barrels toward Yuki, though most of them went well wide of her, and you could count the shots that were actually aimed properly on the fingers of one hand.

Naturally, Mikuru’s enemy would not simply sit there while she was attacked. With her left hand she waved Star Ring Inferno, her absurdly named magic wand, and deflected the shots.

“Oh no…”

Shortly, Mikuru was out of ammunition, and silence fell.

“I-I guess I’ll have to use my last resort! Take that!”

Although it felt a little too early to be using one’s last resort, Mikuru gave a shout with her charming little voice and opened her eyes wide.

Her hand came up, fingers forming a horizontal V shape around her bright blue left eye.

“M-M-Mikuru Beam!” she cried out, and from her eye shot a deadly laser beam. The death ray would burn through the air at the speed of light, piercing anything in its path—or it would have, but there was someone who would not let that happen.

Yuki Nagato.

Teleporting without the use of trick editing, Yuki reached out and blocked the Mikuru Beam with her right hand. Before the natural-sounding
hiss
of the beam could be heard, Yuki lunged toward Mikuru.

“Eek—!”

Mikuru cowered before the black form that rushed toward her. Yuki moved toward Mikuru with such speed that her black cloak billowed out, and she grabbed Mikuru’s face and tackled her to the ground.

“Yaah! N-Nagato, wha—!”

The battle waitress flailed her limbs as Yuki sat on her.

What could possibly happen next? What will Mikuru’s fate be? Why is Itsuki here?

All these questions will be answered after this message from Omori Electronics, delivered by our two leading ladies.

Our story resumes after the commercial, as Waitress Mikuru walks dejectedly along.

“I can’t believe the Mikuru Beam didn’t work… I’ve got to do something!”

She muttered to herself as she trudged through the shopping district. Her clothing in disarray, Mikuru arrived at the stationery shop where she lived, and closing herself up in her bare, unfurnished room, she changed clothes again. Evidently she was not a transforming magical girl and had to change outfits like everybody else.

The sliding door to her room opened, and Mikuru emerged, once again wearing her bunny girl costume. Downcast, she descended the stairs.

Evidently, regardless of the outcome of her battle, she had to work again today. Whether she’s honest or just foolish—or simply a hard worker—she was certainly enduring a lot of hardship, which was not far from the experiences of the actress.

Incidentally, at that moment, Itsuki Koizumi was walking down the street with a vacant expression on his face.

Before him appeared that elusive black-clad figure, Yuki Nagato. Yuki now had a calico cat riding on her shoulder, which hung on by digging its claws into her cloak. It seemed more worried about keeping its balance than Yuki was. Unobtrusive as ever, her appearance in Itsuki’s path was quite sudden.

Itsuki looked surprised as he stopped in front of the cat-carrying sorceress.

“What are you?”

A more appropriate reaction might have been nicer, but in any case that is what he said.

“I am—”

Yuki paused.

“—an alien sorceress.”

Looking at the cat, Itsuki replied:

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

Yuki also looked at the cat.

“What do you want with me?”

“You have a hidden power, which I am after.”

“And what if I say it’s too much trouble?”

“I will have you, even if I must use force.”

“What kind of force do you mean?”

“This.”

Yuki waved the Star Ring Inferno. Immediately, a thunderbolt leaped from the star atop the wand.

“Look out!”

A bunny girl tackled Itsuki from the side, and the two toppled over, limbs tangled. The thunderbolt went wide, splitting a telephone pole.

Itsuki was collapsed atop Bunny Mikuru—a deeply infuriating sight. For some reason, Yuki did not press her attack.

Perhaps it was that Mikuru seemed to be stunned after hitting her head in the fall. Itsuki shook her by the shoulders, and she seemed to come around.

“Owww…”

Mikuru stood as she rubbed her head, then pointed resolutely at Yuki, then called out.

“I won’t let you do as you please!”

Yuki looked first at Mikuru, then expressionlessly at the whiskers of the cat on her shoulder, before returning her gaze to the battle waitress and speaking quietly.

“I will retreat for the time being, but this will not happen again. Use what time is left to you to prepare your gravestone, for next time I shall show you no mercy,” said Yuki as she turned to leave, although there was no reason for her to show Mikuru any mercy now either.

Itsuki spoke.

“Who are you?”

“Huh—?” said Mikuru, who was suddenly tense after having begun to look relieved. “Um, er… I’m just a passing bunny girl! Never mind me! Um, good-bye!”

She ran off after Yuki.

“Whoever could she be?” said Itsuki, eyes gazing pointlessly into the distance as the camera panned just as pointlessly up at the white clouds in the sky.

The next round of “Mikuru versus Yuki” took place by a pond.

It went without saying that the details regarding why they had come to this particular place were entirely omitted. Apparently some things happened, and their conflict had been reignited, or whatever.

“I-I-I’m not going to back down, e-e-evil alien Yuki! L-leave Earth at once! Um… I’m sorry…”

“It is you who should disappear from this time period. He belongs to us. He has value to us. Though he has not realized his own power, it is critical. We will use that power to invade Earth.”