Haruhi said this all at once, like a contestant in a speech competition. Once she finished, she stared up at the sky, looking like she regretted saying all that.
A train passed by on the tracks. The roaring noise gave me some time to decide if I should make a witty comment or quote some philosophical anecdote to fill up the silence. I pointlessly watched the train disappear into the distance, leaving behind a Doppler effect.
“I see.”
My inability to say anything else made me a bit depressed. Haruhi silently patted down her hair, which had been blown around by the gust from the train.
“I’m going home,” she said, and headed back the way we came.
As for me, it would be faster to go home that way, but I got the feeling that Haruhi’s back was silently yelling, “Don’t follow me!” so until Haruhi was out of sight, I just stood there.
What am I doing?
When I got home, I found Koizumi waiting for me outside.
“Hello.”
The way he was smiling already like we’d been friends for ten years was awfully fake. Between the uniform and bookbag, he looked just like a person on his way home from school. He waved familiarly.
“I wanted to fulfill my prior promise. I’ve been waiting for your return. You were earlier than I expected.”
“You sound like you know where I went.”
Koizumi had one of those “smiles are free” looks on his face.
“Could I have a bit of your time?” he asked. “There’s somewhere I want to take you.”
“Suzumiya-related?”
“Suzumiya-related.”
I opened the door to my house and dropped my bag in the entrance. My sister happened to be walking by, so I let her know I might be home late. I then went back and joined Koizumi outside, and a few minutes later, I was a passenger in a car.
Koizumi hailed a taxi that just happened to pass by with unbelievably perfect timing. The freak and I got in the car, and it took off east on the highway. The destination Koizumi named was a large city outside the prefecture. I was pretty sure it would have been far cheaper to go by train, but oh well, he was the one paying for it.
“Incidentally, what prior promise were you talking about?”
“You wanted proof that I was an esper, correct? An opportunity has arrived, so I thought you might want to come along.”
“Is there a point in traveling so far?”
“Yes. I can only demonstrate my powers as an esper in a certain location, under certain conditions. Our current destination happens to fulfill those conditions.”
“Do you still think Haruhi is God or whatever?”
Koizumi, sitting in the back with me, turned my way. “Are you aware of the anthropic principle?”
“Never heard of it.”
Koizumi exhaled a chuckle before speaking again. “The condensed version is as follows. ‘If something must be true for us, as humans, to exist, then it is true simply because we exist.’ That’s the theory.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“ ‘I observe, therefore the universe exists’ would be another way to put it. Basically, humans, the intelligent life forms of this planet, discovered the laws of physics and other physical constants and through those discoveries, became aware for the first time of the existence of a universe bound by those observations. Therefore, if the humans on Earth who observed this universe had not evolved to our current level, there would be no one to make those observations and consequently, the existence of the universe would remain unknown. In other words, it wouldn’t matter if the universe existed or not. The existence of humanity permits the existence of the universe. This would be the reasoning from a human basis.”
“That’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t matter if humans are around or not. The universe is the universe.”
“Precisely. Which is why the anthropic principle cannot be considered scientific. It is merely speculative theory. However, it brings some interesting facts to our attention.”
The taxi stopped at a traffic signal. The driver just looked straight ahead. He didn’t pay any attention to us at all.
“Why did the universe happen to be created to accommodate human life? If there were a slight increase or decrease in the gravitational constant, the universe would most likely not have facilitated the development of the sun. Or take Planck’s constant or particle-mass ratios. They exist in this world at conditions most suitable for humans. Consequently, this universe is what it is, and humanity is what it is. Don’t you find that curious?”
My back was starting to itch. Koizumi sounded like a brochure for one of those new pseudoscience religions.
“Don’t worry. I do not believe that an omniscient, omnipotent God created humans. Neither do my colleagues. However, we have our suspicions.”
“About what?”
“Perhaps we are just clowns standing on tiptoe at the edge of a cliff?”
I must have had a really weird look on my face. Koizumi chuckled like a rooster with asthma.
“I kid.”
“I don’t understand a thing you’re saying.”
I got that out in the open. I didn’t have time to waste on little stories that weren’t funny. Let me out right now or turn the car around. I’d prefer the latter.
“I brought up the anthropic principle to draw a comparison. I haven’t gotten to Suzumiya yet.”
“So tell me already. Why do you, Nagato, and Asahina all like Haruhi so much?”
“I believe her to be a charming person. But let’s set that aside. Do you remember? I once said that the world may have been created by Suzumiya.”
“It annoys the hell out of me, but I guess I still remember.”
“She has the ability to realize wishes.”
“Don’t make that kind of a statement with a straight face.”
“I have no choice but to make such a statement. The situation is changing the way Suzumiya wishes.”
“Like that’s possible.”
“Suzumiya is positive that aliens exist. She wished it to be so. That is why Yuki Nagato is here. Similarly, she wished for time travelers to exist. That is why Mikuru Asahina is here. And I am also here for the sole reason that Suzumiya wished it so.”
“Like I said. How do you know that?”
“It was three years ago.”
Screw three years ago. I’m sick of hearing those words.
“One day, I suddenly became aware of the fact that I possessed certain powers. For some reason, I knew how to use those powers. Other people with the same powers experienced similar awakenings. Furthermore, we also knew that Haruhi Suzumiya was the cause. I cannot explain why. We just ended up with that knowledge.”
“Let’s say I give you the benefit of doubt. I still don’t see how Haruhi can do all that.”
“Indeed. We found it hard to believe ourselves. How could a single girl have transformed the world, no, perhaps even created the world? And that girl finds this world to be a boring place. This is a terrifying situation to behold.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t I tell you? If she is capable of creating this world at will, she could undo the world we know and create her desired world from scratch. That would quite literally be the end of the world. Of course, we have no way of knowing if it has already happened. The world we believe to be unique may actually be the latest in a string of reincarnations.”
Like I’m gonna believe that. I said something else out loud, though. “Then reveal your true identity to Haruhi. Once she knows that espers really exist, she’ll be ecstatic. She might stop thinking about changing the world.”
“That would pose another problem. If Suzumiya believes the existence of espers to be a common occurrence, the world would really end up that way. The laws of physics would be bent. As would the law of conservation of mass and the second law of thermodynamics. The entire universe would erupt into chaos.”
“There’s something I don’t get,” I said. “You said that Haruhi wished for aliens, time travelers, and espers, which is why you, Nagato, and Asahina are here.”
“Yes.”
“Then why hasn’t Haruhi noticed yet? You people know it. Even I know it. Isn’t that kind of odd?”
“You believe it to be contradictory? The contradiction would be within Suzumiya’s heart.”
“In English, please.”
“To be concise, her desire for the existence of aliens, time travelers, and espers contradicts her common sense, which says they cannot exist. She may be eccentric in her speech and conduct, but she is a normal person with rational reasoning. Her sandstorm-level of energy during middle school has alleviated substantially the past few months. I would have preferred that she continue to calm down, but once she came to this school, a tornado touched down.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is your fault.” Only his mouth was smiling. “If you hadn’t given Suzumiya that strange idea, we would probably still be observing her from afar.”
“What did I do?”
“You were the one who gave her the idea to form this questionable club. Your conversation gave her the inspiration to create a club made up of unusual individuals. The responsibility is yours. As a result, low-ranked members from the three forces interested in Suzumiya have gathered together in one group.”
“That’s a false charge.”
One of my weaker denials. Koizumi chuckled.
“Well, that isn’t the only reason.”
And with that, he stopped talking. Before I could tell him to go on, the driver spoke.
“We’re here.”
The car stopped and the door opened. Koizumi and I got out into the crowd of people. The taxi driver drove off without collecting the fare, but I wasn’t particularly surprised.
If anyone living in this region says they’re going out on the town, they probably mean that they’re coming here. A typical local urban area you could find anywhere in Japan with department stores and complex structures lined up all around and a jumble of private railway and Japan Railways terminals. The setting sun lit up the pedestrians rushing by the intersection with color. Once the traffic signal turned green, a sea of people so big you had to wonder where they all came from, started walking. The two of us had been let off at the edge of the crossing and we quickly slipped into the crowd.
“It may be a bit late to say this after coming all this way.” As we slowly walked across the crossing, Koizumi spoke while looking straight ahead. “You can still back out now.”
“Just a bit late, eh?”
Koizumi, walking right next to me, grabbed my hand in his. What are you doing? You’re freaking me out.
“I’m sorry, but could you close your eyes for a bit? It won’t take long. Just a few seconds.”
I dodged some sprinting businessman in a suit who was obviously late to a meeting or something. The walk traffic signal began counting down.
Fine. I complied and closed my eyes. The sound of many footsteps. The roar of car engines. Constant chattering. A tumult of noise.
Koizumi led me by the hand. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Stop.
“That’s enough.”
I opened my eyes.
The world had turned gray.
It was dark. I unconsciously looked up at the sky. The bright orange sun was nowhere to be found. The sky was covered with dark gray clouds. Were they even clouds? It looked like flat seamless space that stretched on forever. My surroundings were covered in shadows. The gray sky emitted soft phosphorescence in the sun’s absence, the only light preventing this world from falling into total darkness.
No one was around.
Aside from Koizumi and me, standing in the middle of the intersection, the crowd of people covering the crosswalk had vanished without a trace. The traffic signal continued counting down in the dim light and had just turned red. Yet not a single car moved. It was so silent you might wonder if the earth had stopped rotating.
“The void within a dimensional fault. A place separated from our world. Closed space.”
Koizumi’s voice echoed rather loudly through the silent air.
“The middle of this crosswalk happened to be the ‘wall’ of this closed space. Here, like this.”
Koizumi’s outstretched arm stopped like it had run into an obstacle. I followed suit. It felt like I was touching chilled winter sky. My hand pressed softly into an elastic, invisible wall but met firm resistance before even making it ten centimeters in.
“Its radius is approximately five kilometers. You cannot gain entry through ordinary, physical measures. One of the powers I possess is the ability to enter this space.”
Not a single light was on in any of the buildings protruding from the ground like bamboo shoots, nor in any of the stores in the shopping district. The only artificial light was from the traffic signal and the dimly lit street lights.
“Where is this?”
Maybe I should have asked what this is.
Koizumi calmly said he would explain as we walked.
“The details are unclear, but this would be an alternate world slightly off from ours… at least, you can think of it as such. A dimensional fault sprung from the place we were just at. We have entered the resulting gap. Right now, everything is happening as normal on the outside. The average person will be unable to stumble into this place… most of the time, at least.”
We crossed the street. Did Koizumi already know where we were going? He seemed sure of himself.
“Picture a dome-shaped space rising from the ground. We would be within that.”
We entered a multipurpose building. Forget people. There wasn’t even a speck of dust.
“Closed space occurs in a completely arbitrary fashion. There have been instances where they occurred every other day. There were also times when months went by without incident. Only one thing is certain.”
We climbed the stairs. It was really dark. If I hadn’t been able to see the faint image of Koizumi walking in front of me, I probably would have tripped over myself.
“This space is created whenever Suzumiya becomes emotionally unstable.”
We stepped out onto the roof of the four-story multipurpose building.
“I am able to detect the emergence of closed space. So can my colleagues. The reason we are able to do so is a mystery. But we know the location and time of emergence without knowing why. And the method for entry, as well. I am unable to express this sensation in words.”
I placed my hands on the railing of the roof and looked up at the sky. There wasn’t even a breeze.
“You brought me all the way here to show me this? It’s just an empty place, isn’t it?”
“No, the crux of the matter is yet to come. It should begin soon.”
Stop acting so superior. But Koizumi just pretended not to see the sour look on my face.
“My powers are not limited to detecting and entering closed space. You could say that I’ve been granted powers which reflect Suzumiya’s rationality. If this world is like a pimple resulting from her unstable state, I would be the medicine that treats it.”
“Your metaphors are hard to understand,” I replied.
“People often tell me that. In any case, you are quite impressive. Not a hint of surprise after witnessing all this.”
I recalled the erased Asakura and the gorgeous Asahina. I’d already been through a lot.
Koizumi abruptly looked up. His eyes gazed beyond my head at some point far off in the distance.
“I see that it has begun. Please look behind you.”
I looked.
I could see, standing far in the distance between skyscrapers, a shining blue giant.
It was a head taller than a thirty-story commercial building. It looked like its body was glowing from within. Was its slim, dull cobalt-blue body made from some kind of irradiant substance? It had no distinct outline. And nothing you could consider facial features. The places where eyes and mouth would go appeared darker, but the rest of the face was completely blank.
What is that?
The giant raised and shook one arm like it was waving before bringing it down like a hatchet.
It smashed a nearby building in half as it waved its arm. Debris from the concrete and reinforcing bars fell in slow motion and rained down upon the asphalt below with a thunderous roar.
“We believe this to be the manifestation of Suzumiya’s irritation. It seems that when the pent-up negative feelings in her pass a certain point, these giants appear and start wrecking their surroundings to relieve her stress. Of course, we can’t allow them to run loose in the real world as it would turn into a huge disaster. That is why closed space is created and the destruction only transpires within. Quite a rational method, don’t you think?”
Every time the shining blue giant waved an arm, a building would split in half and collapse. The giant would step forward, crushing what was left of the building. I could hear the dull sound of structures being crushed, but oddly enough, I couldn’t hear the footsteps of the giant.
“The laws of physics dictate that the legs of a humanoid of such proportions would be unable to support its own weight. The giant is behaving like it is weightless. Its ability to destroy buildings would suggest that it has mass but it would appear that it is not bound by logic. Mobilizing an army wouldn’t be enough to stop it.”
“So you just let it rampage around?”
“No. That is why I am here. Please watch.”
Koizumi pointed his finger at the giant. I squinted. A number of red dots that hadn’t been there before were circling around the creature. Compared to the blue giant, who could probably touch the clouds with its skyscraper-level height, the tiny spherical red lights looked like sesame seeds. I counted up to five of them, but they moved so fast that my eyes couldn’t keep up. The red dots, orbiting the giant-like satellites, looked like they were trying to obstruct its path.
“My colleagues. Like myself, they were granted power by Suzumiya. We are giant hunters.”
The specks of red light skillfully evaded the waving arms of the blue giant impassively wrecking the city. They then abruptly altered their course and charged at the giant’s body, which seemed like it was made of vapor. They easily penetrated it.
But the giant apparently paid no attention to the red spheres flying around its face. It ignored their attacks and, almost dutifully, swung its arm down in a karate chop to smash a department store.
Even when the numerous red lights charged together, the giant didn’t even flinch. The red lights were so fast that they resembled a cluster of lasers penetrating the giant’s body. From this far away, I had absolutely no idea how much damage it had taken. I didn’t see a single hole on its body.
“I must join them.”
Koizumi’s body began glowing red. This would be what you call an aura of visible light. Koizumi’s glowing body was eventually engulfed in a sphere of red light. What was before me was no longer human, just a big ball of light.
This is just ridiculous, man.
The sphere of red light softly floated up. It shook left and right two to three times as if waving, before it took off so fast there weren’t even any afterimages and flew straight for the giant.
Since the swarm of red lights Koizumi joined never stood still for a second, I couldn’t bring myself to count them, but I doubt their number reached double digits. And their valiant use of their bodies to attack merely served to carry them through and didn’t seem to have any actual effect. At least, that’s my opinion as an observer. But then, one of the red spheres approached the blue giant’s arm, attached itself near the elbow, and circled it once.
And with a whoosh, the giant’s arm was severed near its elbow. The arm, now without an owner, fell to the ground. At least that’s what I expected, but then the blue light sparkled like a mosaic. The arm began to thin and melted like a snowflake bathing in sunlight. Blue vaporous smoke began slowly dripping from the severed elbow. Was that the giant’s blood? The scene had definitely entered the realm of fantasy.
The red spheres switched from head-on to piecemeal attacks. They gathered around the giant the way fleas would swarm around a dog and began hacking away at the blue creature. Red lines slashed across the giant’s face as its head slid off. Its shoulders collapsed, and before long, its upper torso turned into some kind of weird-looking lump. The severed parts turned to mosaics before disappearing.
Since the blue light was standing in an area of deserted land without anything serving as cover, I was able to observe the entire sequence of events. Once the giant had lost over half of its body, it broke down. It disintegrated into specks smaller than dust. Only the piles of debris remained.
The red dots circling above waited until they were sure it was over before scattering in all directions. Over half of them immediately disappeared out of sight, but one came flying straight toward me. It made a soft landing on the rooftop, went from police-siren red to a shade more akin to a space heater, and began dimming. Once the glow had vanished, all that remained was Koizumi brushing his hair pompously with a smile on his face.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He wasn’t even short of breath.
“There is one last sight for you to see.”
He pointed to the sky. I wondered what else there could possibly be as I looked up at the dark gray sky, and then I saw it.
There was a crack in the sky near where I had first seen the giant. It looked like a hatching chick trying to break out of its egg. The crack began extending in the shape of a spider web.
“Once the blue monster is defeated, the closed space is destroyed. It’s quite the spectacle.”
While Koizumi was finishing or not finishing his explanation, the cracks covered the entire world. It looked like someone had covered the sky with a huge metal sieve and forgotten about it. The spaces in between the cracks grew smaller and eventually became little more than black curves.
Crash!
There wasn’t an audible sound. But I could feel the sound of glass shattering inside my head. A spot of light appeared at the zenith and instantly began widening in a circle. I thought it was raining light, but I was mistaken. It was more like one of those retractable roofs on a dome stadium opening in mere seconds. Except with the entire stadium opening, not just the roof.
Piercing noise rang through my eardrums, and I reflexively covered my ears. But that was just a hallucination after having spent time in a silent world. It was the sound of the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
The world had regained its former state.
The crumbled skyscrapers, gray sky, and flying red lights were nowhere to be found. The road was covered with cars and people again. The familiar orange light of the sun shone between buildings and cast long shadows on all objects blessed by its warmth.
There was a gentle breeze.
“Do you understand now?” Koizumi asked once we were safely in the taxi, which, with unbelievable timing, had pulled up before us after we left the multipurpose building. The driver looked familiar.
“Nope,” I responded. I meant it.
“Thought you would say that,” came Koizumi’s cheerful response. “Those blue monsters—we call them Celestials—are, as I already mentioned, linked to Suzumiya’s emotional state. As are we in the Agency. Only when closed space is created, when Celestials are created, am I able to use my paranormal powers. And those powers can only be used within closed space. For instance, I currently have no power.”
I silently stared at the back of the driver’s head.
“It is unknown why we are the only ones with such powers, but I would assume that any person would have sufficed. It was like winning the lottery. The probability is extremely low, but someone is bound to win. They just happened to have called my number.
“An unfortunate tale,” Koizumi finished with an ironic smile on his face. I kept my mouth shut. I had no idea what I should say.
“We cannot leave the actions of the Celestials unchecked. For the greater the extent of destruction the Celestials wreak, the more closed space will expand. The space you just saw was one of the smaller ones. If we leave it alone, it will continue to expand, eventually covering all of Japan, or even the entire world. And in the end, that gray space will take the place of our world.”
I finally opened my mouth. “Why do you know this?”
“As I said, I just ended up with this knowledge. The same goes for everyone in the Agency. One day, we suddenly became aware of the fact that we possessed knowledge concerning Suzumiya, the effect she has on the world, and the strange powers we now possessed. As well as the result of leaving closed space untended. It’s only natural to do whatever you can once you’ve learned the consequences. For if we do not act, the world will surely be destroyed.
“Quite a quandary,” Koizumi sighed before falling silent.
We just stared at the roadside through the car windows for the rest of the ride to my house.
The car came to a stop and I got out.
“Please be mindful of any trends in Suzumiya’s behavior. Her emotional state has been stable for a while now, but recently, there have been signs of agitation. Today’s duties were the first in a long time.”
“Even if I’m mindful, what’s that going to accomplish?”
“Well, you never know. Personally, I would prefer to leave everything in your hands. There are those among us with complicated intentions.” Koizumi said all this with his body sticking out through the half-opened door. He then ducked his head back in the car before I could say anything. The door shut. I dumbly watched the car depart like some legendary ghost taxi. I then went into my house.