25th: The Defense of Haruhi Suzumiya

[godbent]

[Voice]

Okay, so listen up, everyone. There's a new girl in town who I want you all to recognize and keep something in mind when dealing with her!

[And then to the book, she holds up a picture of Mikuru (tpdd). Taken with the journal and ripped out - namely, it's just her making tea in a cute pink yukata. Something simple and non-invasive for the time being]

This is her - Mikuru Asahina. She's cute, right? Of course she is!


[And then this face]

If any of you guys are harassing her or hitting on her or whatever and I hear about it I'm reserving the right to pepper stray or taser you. You got that? I'm serious too, don't you doubt that for a second.

[...Okay no with that done with back to smiling! She laughs where briefly before-]

Now! If you want to see her or you just want to helped out - particularly all you New Feathers, bonus points if you have something interesting to show us - recall that the SOS-Brigade is open to taking requests even now. Now that the holidays are over and the winters settling in on us, now's the prime time to do it! Got some stuff which needs investigating? Some emotions you can't deal with, some other inane task we can mend when it comes to interpersonal issues?! Sign right up! the HQ's right in the center of town, you can't miss it.

[... Hm. Yeah that should do it Request post for the Brigade is here, just recall!]

-And for today anyone coming to see Mikuru I'm screening first.

[EDIT: For the record if anyone wants action threads with Mikuru (or Haruhi! or both!) for whatever reason both are at the HQ right now.]

Comments

[godbent]

You wanted some explanation, remember?

[menial]

Yeah, I know.

['But sometimes normal people engage in pleasantries before they get started, Haruhi.']

Okay, go ahead.

[godbent]

[Whatever. And she... picks up the piece of paper and hands it to him. On it is a very, very long list of names. (canon isn't included ICly obviously that's just in case you want to look them up or something):]

Ahiru (Princess Tutu)
Alphonse Elric (2003 FMA)
Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)
Arthur Dent (Hitchhiker's Guide)
Atsuro Kihara (Devil Survivor)
Ayumu Aikawa (This is a Zombie?)
Azusa Miura (The iDOLM@STER)
Dizzy (Guilty Gear)
Excellen Browning (Super Robot Wars)
Grune (Tales of Legendia)
Hanyuu Furude (Higurashi)
Hiccup (How to Train Your Dragon)
Hinata Hyuuga (Naruto)
KAITO (Vocaloid)
Garent [Real name "Katie McCoy"] (OC)
Keiichi Maebara (Higurashi)
Killua (Hunter X Hunter)
Kitty Pryde (X-Men)
Kotori Monou (X)
Kurt Wagner (X-Men)
Leon D.S. Geeste (Star Ocean)
Mai (Avatar)
Mami Tomoe (Madoka)
Mammon (Reborn!)
Michelangelo (TMNT)
Mikage Celestine (07-Ghost)
Mike Nelson (Mystery Science Theater 3000)
Misa Amane (Death Note)
Miu Matsuoka (Strawberry Marshmallow)
Naoki (SMT Nocturne Protagonist)
Osaka (Azumanga Daioh)
Oswald (Epic Mickey)
Pommy (Bomberman)
Ranka Lee (Macross Frontier)
Razette (07-Ghost)
Rena Ryuuguu (Higurashi)
Rika Furude (Higurash)
Ritsuka (Loveless)
Rue (Princess Tutu)
Shinpachi Nagakura [Note: this is a real world historical figure] (Peacemaker Kurogane)
Shion Sonozaki (Higurashi)
Taichi Yamagi (Digimon)
Tear Grants (Tales of the Abyss)
Uriko Noromura (Bloody Roar)
Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon)
Vash (Trigun)
Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Yoohoo (Devil Survivor)
Yuzuriha Nekoi (X)
Zell (Final Fantasy 8)

[menial]

[He stares at it mechanically for a second. Maebara; Aikawa; Kihara; Miura-san. No Arisato, Shiki, Winry, et cetera.]

This is the total roster of your Brigade over the years?

['That's a lot of people.']

[godbent]

Yeah, it is.

[She... almost goes to avoid his gaze, but decides not to]

[menial]

[He pauses. It's hard to think of what to say next. It's ...]

You knew all these people pretty well?

[godbent]

Some... more than others, I guess.

[menial]

Right.

['So yes.

Okay... Now what?

...']

Why did you recruit a new Brigade in the first place, Haruhi?

[godbent]

...That list neglects a handful of people. Versions of you, Mikuru, Nagato, and Koizmi have all been here before. All at different times, and most of them not for very long. But when I first arrived - this was over three years ago - it was... me and you. Alone, in some paranormal world.

[menial]

[He stares at the list again for a moment, mechanically reading the names over again -- someone's name is "Duck"? Isn't the name Shinpachi Nagakura familiar?

But he turns his attention to the words she said eventually, reluctant as he is, for some reason, to think about what they mean.

'First off, what's "versions" mean? ...It's probably what Sokka said I really shouldn't ask about. Fine. For now. Okay.

...I feel like I could just let her go on at this point, really. Me and her alone in a paranormal world, well, that's not entirely new, is it? But that one ended fast. And... Did I let her down in some way? What went wrong? Or did anything go wrong, other than my leaving without her?

Of course, I have no more answers to these questions than if you administered a pop quiz on the history of Zambia to me.']

...So what happened?

[godbent]

[There's no shame in her voice in this first part. She plays with the end of her hair - it's only nostalgia right here, warm memories of some simpler time] So... it was me and you. [And she can't help it. As she says "you" she glances in the direction to the door of what is now Shiki's room] In a world like this. [...] Well, not like this. Luceti was different then - no electricity, smaller population we didn't have those huge apartment buildings...

Look, I don't know what the "Brigade" is to you, but at that time, I had come from just after the cultural festival. I was eager to plant the name of the SOS-Brigade on this new world, and Koizumi's cou- [-sin] There were other people around to help with it too. So I recruited. Leon was one of the original members... and Al.

[...]

As a note, some of those names on the list: Al, Mai. A few others. They have versions in Luceti now who don't remember these times. [And this part... comes out a bit more strained]

[menial]

Mai as in the one who lives on the same floor as me? That explains that, then. ['Such a surly person in the Brigade?

...I'm getting off-track again, though. She said a lot of things there. That's Shiki's room that she looked at, right? Was it my room, then? So things weren't always quite like this. When we first got here, we stuck together. As irrelevant as that is to me now, it feels a little like Alexander cut some Gordian knot of stress in my shoulders at that. Not all my assumptions are wrong.

And if it's from the festival.. Yeah, things were different then, weren't they? In some ways, that was day one of the second phase of the Brigade. If it was like that... Well, I still don't know if I would have been on board with expanding the Brigade.

Apparently I was, but...

Hard for me now to say exactly what the me then would have thought, right? I can only go off what happened and what I think now. But couldn't it be a different name, at least? Okay, who cares, really? A rose by any other name would be just as red. Or whatever color it was, anyway. Let me just catch up here.']

Hold on. Koizumi's what?

['And did he approve of that, too? Koizumi, as far as I can tell... he has as much attachment, or more, to the idea of the brigade as anyone.']

[godbent]

Cou...sin. ... There was some-- person who was a lot like him and had the same last name. I never confirmed if they were related or not.

[menial]

['Somehow, I always pictured Koizumi as an only child and without relatives like that. I don't know. Still, I suppose if it walks like a Koizumi, talks like a Koizumi, and gets in your face like an annoying Koizumi...']

Is that what you meant by "versions of us" have been around?

[He shrugs.]

Okay.

[As in go on...?]

[godbent]

In those days, I sort of figured that eventually, Mikuru and the others would show up here - I mean, they had to, right? This was before... the war. All the other stuff. Bad things happened but not- [To me. To people she cared about. She shakes her head] It just seemed like a more perfect world. The SOS-Brigade had to exist in such a world, so I decided to make it bigger, show all you guys how awesome it was when you got here.

[menial]

['...

No, I don't have anything to think yet. Let's wait until the facts are in.']

So how long did 'those days' last?

[godbent]

"You" were here about a year. No one else really arrived in that time. [No one... she recognized. Alternates. Versions. But she won't get into that]

...I guess after a while, no one arrived and I started to take for granted "you" were here.

[menial]

['Why is she saying "you" like that...?

...Again. Save your questions until the end.']

So then I... disappeared after a year?

[godbent]

...Yeah, you did.

[She actually sounds a little mad, all things considered]

[menial]

['What can I say to that? "I'm sorry?"

At the same time, what could it have been like? If it was just us... And then just her? If we... No, I don't want to think about it.

But I have to, don't I? Let's say Koizumi is here and suggesting that I should be madly in love with her. Not too hard to imagine. And, he'd say, because she took me to her new world, she considered that to be important enough to bring over. So say that worked... And then say we were here for a year. A year is just about as long as I've known Haruhi, the real Haruhi. So much more could happen in that time...

So, what? "I won't do it again, Haruhi." But this isn't even that Haruhi anymore, right? She wouldn't care... And I'd be better off gone.

If I could find the right thing to say...']

...I wish it hadn't happened to you, Haruhi.

[godbent]

[She's taken aback, briefly. She looks up at him, her eyes wide, maybe a bit hurt looking, like she might have cried if she was by herself. But. He just apologizes? What is he stupid? Is she- She shakes her head, trying to force a more neutral expression onto her face. and eventually, it comes]

I moved in with Shiki then. Sometime after that, Neku came in, then Rena, and Rena left, then Hanyuu, Rena again... some other too, but they all vanished as well. I met other people, the Brigade grew and... well, I guess the result is obvious.

[...]

I'm glad you're here.

[menial]

['...Haruhi, when you look like that, I don't even know what to do. I......

Damn it, I need to shut up in my head!']

...I see.

[Pause.]

I'm glad you are, too.

[He sighs.

'I remember Shiki saying something, though...

"Her friends left about the same time my friends left... She needed a friend, I needed a distraction."

Shiki's friend who left... That would be Neku? She said "again", after all. So... Haruhi's friend who left, that would be... me.

And now it's all in the past, is that it? She has a new life here? To tell the truth, seeing that new life, I'm sometimes surprised she even said she would want to go back, even if it was only after she finished here. She did say that, right? But between the powers, the "interesting things", and the people she replaced us with--Well, is that fair to say...?

At any rate... If we are back to showing up again, if Nagato and Koizumi show up next, then... Then that would mostly be a cruel trick to play on her, with her so different. Sending us back without memories of this place is probably the kindest thing they could do.'

He swallows. Another question is brewing in his mind.]

So... You kept going with the Brigade in the time after I was taken back?

[godbent]

We had at least ten members by then. Even without you or anyone else, it's not fair to those members who had been there a year or so to stop.

[menial]

...Makes sense.

['Once it starts being not just for us, that is.']

So... how about the others? The people who aren't in the Brigade, like Arisato and Winry, how did that happen?

['Again, one might think that once Haruhi established a Brigade, she would ignore those outside of it.']

[godbent]

Minato is a blight on my person I'll never get out.

[She decides to focus on that part]