'Rest easy, Nagato. At least this thing is over now.'
Why didn't I just say 'nothing bad can happen anymore'? Seriously. It would have been much less ominous and failure-inducing. Murphy's Law states that 'what can go wrong, will go wrong', and the ancient believed that to taunt fate summoned misfortune. Plus, I've been spending all this time in the SOS-dan. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now.
Then again, I had the strangest feeling that I needed to comfort Nagato in that moment. How weird is that? He wound up acting as a human shield for me, and I felt he was the one in distress.
Of course, Makuro had just blown away Kimidori-senpai. Literally. I wasn't sure whether she'd actually brushed off all of those other interfaces that were watching from the school's rooftop and from the shadows, but they hadn't managed to stop her, that was for certain.
I tried to mention the subject to Nagato during the bus ride back home, and he looked grim again.
"It is suspected that the entity moved into a different phase," he finally said.
That's interesting. What do you mean by a different phase?
"The entity did not depart from the time-space coordinates it had been occupying, and yet it somehow moved beyond the range of observation," Nagato replied. "Contact was lost."
"You mean ... Makuro's the slider that Haruki's been wanting?" I asked.
"No. In that case, tracking would still have been possible," Nagato replied. "According to the last received data, the entity never left the coordinates it had been occupying."
You've lost me.
"The entity changed its position without changing its coordinates in spacetime," Nagato tried again. "It departed without moving in any known direction."
"That sounds like a paradox," I said, and scratched behind my ear.
"Yes," Nagato agreed. "An explanation is not yet forthcoming."
"Does the IDTE really want to hook up with the Oni?" I asked. "It doesn't seem like that hot an idea."
Nagato didn't say anything, but he briefly looked me in the eye.
After that, it was time to get off the bus, sneak back to my house and somehow make my way back to my bedroom without waking up mom and dad. It was a tough mission, but I somehow managed to struggle through.
Exhausted by this night's extravaganza, I put on my pajamas and crawled into bed. Tomorrow, I would have to sweet-talk Kunikida into showing me her notes. After that, maybe I'd try to pester Itsuko into finding out more about these so-called 'honours' that Makuro had been going on about. No rush.
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"Munch, munch munch. Gulp."
Of course these are poor representations of the sound of someone chewing heartily and swallowing big mouthfuls, but it's the best I can think of to represent what I heard.
Am I dreaming of a big banquet or something? I opened my eyes in the dream world and saw ... the sky, rent by lightning.
I was lying on a flat rock in a mountainous landscape. The sky was full of clouds, and the wind howled between the crags. Lightning brought harsh, brief bursts of illumination to the darkness. The wind bore an unpleasant stench, which reminded me of visits to the zoo.
I sat up and looked around me. The flat rock was itself on top of a peak, and everywhere around me, there was a long drop down. Not that I could clearly see how long the drop was; at a certain point, the mountains became obscured by a billowing fog.
Lightning flashed, and I could see things flying through the fog. From this altitude, they looked like bats. I suspected they'd be a lot bigger close-up -- and that I wouldn't enjoy being close-up.
"Munch, munch, munch. Gulp."
The sound of chewing and smacking was lost in the crash of thunder, but it kept right on going despite the noise. Me, I cringed in terror from the terrible boom that followed every flash, but the person who was eating didn't seem to be bothered by it.
The lightning showed her to me, picked her out in merciless detail. She was sitting a peak over, her back towards me. Pale, frail-looking hands help up one of the two containers I'd just delivered to the school. Makuro was face-deep into the beans, wolfing them down with unseemly enthusiasm.
I wanted to say something, but stopped: lightning flashed, and by its glare, what was sitting there suddenly wasn't a frail little girl anymore.
I screamed ...
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Dad came rushing to my room again when he heard the shriek and thump, though a little less quickly than yesterday. He was solicitous of my sudden bout of nightmares followed by falling out of bed, but he suggested I find out the root cause of the problem.
I know, this is cutting into everyone's valuable bed rest. I'll try to do something about it.
If I had any more dreams when I returned to sleep, I didn't remember them. The next morning, my little brother had to practically drag me out of bed. He enjoyed it, of course, but I was dead on my feet even when I left for school.
"What's wrong with you?" was the first thing Haruki asked me when I walked into the classroom.
Good morning to you, too. I just didn't sleep so well.
Kunikida came into the classroom, and I hurried off to talk to her. I opened my mouth and -- "Please let me copy your homework." ... That plea should not have sounded in stereo just now.
As it turned out, Kunikida had been having a little too much fun with Taniguchi yesterday at karaoke, and she'd been counting on me to help her out. So now that left me with only one option. Darn the luck.
"Haruki ..."
"Sheesh, you look even worse now!" Haruki stated, looking at me askance. "What's wrong now? Sore stomach?"
Just let me copy from you during break, okay?
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With classes over, I started to drag myself towards the clubroom. Haruki quickly caught me up and started to pass me -- then paused and doubled back, looking me in the eye.
"I was going to give you a penalty for skipping yesterday," he said, "but it looks like I'll have to save it for tomorrow."
You're too kind.
"Not that you deserve such consideration," he went on in a haughty tone of voice, "but right now, you don't look like it would be as much fun to have you play the penalty game."
Just what is it you want me to do?
Haruki did not deign to answer my question, but instead walked me to the clubroom. He was going on about a new band he'd recently discovered, and even offered to let me listen to their single over his headphones. No, thank you. My head hurts due to lack of sleep. Just listening to people talk is annoying.
The other three were already waiting for us in the clubroom. Nagato was ... not reading a book. Instead, he was standing in front of the window, gazing out at the sports field. Care to tell me what's going on in your head right now, Nagato?
"Ah, Suzumiya-san," Itsuko greeted Haruki. She smiled at me and gave me a courteous nod. "I see you have both arrived."
"I'll make the tea," Asahina-san offered.
"Good man, Mitsuuru-kun," Haruki said as he rushed to his desk. He looked askance at Yuuki, who had not even glanced at him, but shrugged his oddity off. "Alright, I have an important item of business for the Brigade!" he announced.
Maybe the other three are all agog, but I have a headache. I sagged onto a chair, put my arms on the table and gratefully let my head sink onto them. Ow. Ow. Ow.
"After the success of Setsubun," Haruki announced, "we have to have a demon hunt."
My head shot up so fast that my neck hurt. What did you say? Asahina-senpai dropped a tea cup, which shattered, and yelped because he just splashed his feet with scalding tea. Behind Haruki, Nagato turned back from the window to stare at him. Only Koizumi seemed unaffected, her smile firmly in place.
"Let me guess, Suzumiya-san," she said. "Since the demons have been evicted from their previous homes by the casting of the beans, you expect they will be easier to find now, correct?"
"Well done, Koizumi-chan!" Haruki said, giving her a thumbs up. "That is exactly right. I've read some more in that book on Goethian magic, as well as a couple of other texts. Capturing demons seems surprisingly easy, actually!"
This can't be happening.
Haruki is grinning like a lunatic. This really is happening. Why won't anyone say something?
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Haruki spent most of the rest of the afternoon outlining our activities for the weekend. Apparently, we were meant to get up early on Sunday and come to the train station, where we'd receive our assignments. Haruki still had to gather some 'essential supplies' for the big day, and had been frustratingly vague about what he wanted us to do, exactly.
All he'd say was that we needed to bring sturdy clothing that 'could stand to get a little dirty', and as many empty bottles as we could muster. I'm begging you, please don't tell me you expect us to capture demons in old milk bottles!
If you try to catch something like Makuro, she'd probably smash the bottle over your head and carve you a second smile ... And according to that fairy tale, she's small for an Oni! What would a fullgrown one do to you?
After Haruki gave us all leave to go home, I tried talking to Itsuko in private, but she begged off, citing she had to hurry to her part-time job.
Does that mean you're going to have the Organization fabricate some distraction for Haruki, so that he'll abandon this stupid idea? Maybe I should try calling her later today; if she isn't already planning to do something of the sort, then I should really suggest it!
Nagato wasn't in the mood to talk, either. He moved away so swiftly, he was almost running. Asahina-senpai didn't move off as quickly as all that, but he was clearly in a state bordering on shock. The last time I saw him like that was after that blackmail session with the Computer Research Club ...
I was feeling pretty shocked myself as I trudged down the hill to my bicycle. A demon hunt ...? We'd only just gotten rid of the demons, even if Haruki didn't know that -- or did he? Even if he didn't consciously remember what had happened, maybe some subconscious part of him was raging at having been attacked and wanted its revenge? How were we supposed to fix this?
I found myself near the place where I'd locked my bike and -- froze.
Someone was standing there, waiting for me. And they had company.
...
Oh, drat.
2009-05-28, 15:00
I'll try my best to see if I can write more when I got free time.
Can anything stop the demons? Who're you gonna call?
Incidentally ... I'd still love to see fanart! ^^
