The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya Read Free Page A

person was actually an older version of her required an even greater mental leap. Just as I was agonizing over whether to tell her, my thoughts were obliterated by what happened next. Though I knew it was coming, watching it from outside still gave me goose bumps.
    A dark form bolted out of the shadows. Just after it swept past us, I realized it was Ryoko Asakura, lunging toward my other self, about to slam into him—no, she
did
slam into him. Hard, and holding a knife at her waist.
    Asahina the Elder cried out as my useless other self was stabbed. Just as I remembered being.
    “Unggh—”
    It definitely looked painful. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but Asakura was twisting the knife back and forth. She was murderous—she was really trying to kill me. Asakura the corrupted backup was guilty of attempted murder.
    “I” collapsed to the ground.
    “Wha… aah! Kyon!” Asahina called out, and started to run to my other self, but she soon collided with an invisible barrier. “Ow—” she cried, looking up. In the moment, she must have forgotten that I was still right beside her. All she could see was the collapsed “me” across the way. I felt both grateful and not.
    “Nagato!” Asahina shouted.
    In response, Nagato nodded softly. “Dissolving barrier… now.”
    Asahina ran out as Nagato herself began to move—more swiftly than the night wind. Nagato was upon Asakura a moment later, grabbing Asakura’s upheld knife blade with her hand. Asakura’s cry, a mix of shock and hatred, reached my ears as I reached myself.
Geez—I look terrible
.
    Asahina the Younger clung tearfully to “my” collapsed body. It was nice that she was worried about me and all, but if she kept shaking me like that, she was just going to make me die faster.
    Luckily, she was kneeling and desperately calling out to me so fervently that she forgot all about the other woman. It was enough to make me want to thank her.
    The silent Asahina the Elder looked up from where her gaze had been to regard me.
    “So you came.”
    I was still a bit late, though—not in terms of time, but mentally.
    “… Wha…?” The voice was Nagato, exactly as I’d remembered her. It pained my heart to see her there—still wearing glasses, having fallen as she’d stumbled back, her expression one of shock. Her dark eyes moved from my other self’s collapsed form, to Asakura, to her school uniform–clad doppelganger, then finally to me.
    “Wh… why…?”
    I had promised Nagato. Which meant I could say nothing to
this
Nagato, the one who had just rewritten the world. There was only one thing I could do, one thing to say.
    I picked up the needle gun that the Nagato from three years ago had made, then looked down at myself. I opened my mouth to say the line I remembered hearing. I was pretty sure I got it right, and even if I didn’t, I was sure a bit of deviation would be allowed. My other self’s barely open eyes finally closed completely, and his neck slumped sideways. It was a textbookloss of consciousness, good enough to make it look like I’d died—and if we didn’t stop my bleeding soon, I really
would
die.
    Now it was really my turn—even though starting then, I didn’t know what was going to happen.
    The first thing I looked at was my Nagato stopping Asakura.
    “…”
    The knife that Nagato held turned to sparkling dust. Asakura tried to jump back, but her feet held fast to the ground, as if stuck there. Nagato murmured in a quiet, rapid voice.
    “No—Why? Isn’t this—” Asakura’s body began to shimmer. “Isn’t this what you wished for? Why… even now…”
    Asakura fell silent with the question on her lips, as the dissolution of the knife was followed by that of her own body, which finally crumbled and scattered. At the same time—
    “Ah… uhh…”
    Asahina the Younger had fallen prostrate over “my” body. With her closed eyes and her barely parted lips, she looked for all the world like she was sleeping. Asahina the