Chapter 2: Kyon

Terrible Mercantile Manipulation

{A's N: Unlike the Cain Archive, I have decided not to provide commentary in the Kyon Archive. Instead, at the end of each excerpt, I shall provide commentary upon the events described within, with regards how much confirmation I could obtain that the events within had actually occurred and were not the products of a demented imagination.

Once again, I advise most strongly that any of the Monodomionists among the readership which these documents have garnered not read the Kyon Archive. Likewise, the Radicals among you (and you know who you are) are not to take any impression that I agree with your deluded agenda, even when some of the contents within approaches heresy. This "Kyon" is self-honestly deluded, if not actively malevolent and/or heretical and/or insane, and not to be trusted unless independent sources confirm his often-insane allegations and beliefs.

Take any of his delusional allegations with great suspicion.

Really.}

Finally, it appeared that the violence had ceased. I checked the charge-counter thing on the side of the bulky weapon that Haruhi had forced into my hands, and insisted that I use.

It read "1".

Yes, it was very fortunate indeed that all those alien bug-dinosaur-monster things were dead. Honestly, what were they meant to be? They obviously were based off your standard bugs-from-outer-space which should normally be swarming down the streets of Toyko in vast numbers, but (as we'd found out when that tank-sized thing which vomited that green plasma glow all over the place had stumbled into Yuki) they had endoskeletons as well as exoskeletons, as well as weapons built into them, and their exoskeletons were ridiculously tough.

It was almost as if someone had thought that dinosaurs were cool, and giant bugs from outer space were cool, and merged the two, adding rather disgusting biological weapons as they went. All in all, it was rather overdone, actually, and more than a little ridiculous. Sadly, that was why Haruhi was enjoying it so much. How can someone who does so well in tests, and obviously rolled far too well for her life-stats at character creation, have such poor taste?

Talking of the Ultra-Inquisitor herself, she came striding down over a floor littered with those bugs that the guns of those things had been shooting, crunching as she went. From the maniac grin on her face, she was obviously having the time of her life.

"Interrogator Kyon! To me!"

Damn it, Haruhi, if you're going to drag me around an alien world fighting monsters that would put Godzilla to shame, you could at least use my real name.

"Yes," she said, her veins still obviously flooded with adrenaline... well, more flooded than usual, "I think that was rather easy. Even when that massive cockroach thing showed up, it went down too easily. It's a pity that a real monster didn't show up, like a dragon or something."

That's not what I said! And, anyway, you only found that easy because Yuki did something to its armour. Normally, you wouldn't be able to kill a biological monster akin to the giants of Greek mythology with a shot to the eye. Even from a rocket pistol.

"Stop complaining, Kyon," Haruhi replied, a somewhat exasperated maternal glint in her overly-wide eyes. "I gave you that melting gun, didn't I?"

Only because it was heavy!

Out loud, I said, "Where are the others?"

She shrugged, and I flinched as the air hummed as she waved that sword around. "Come on, Kyon. We're all bored of waiting for you."

What do you mean, bored of waiting for me! I've waiting here for you! And so were they, until you sent them off to get something, and dragged me off. Do you know what that damn sword did to the wall! Please, I'm begging you, Haruhi; turn the energy field off.

She didn't do so, of course, so as we picked our way across the battlefield, all the way to the tank that Haruhi had commandeered, I kept well back. Honestly, it was almost a relief to even see Koizumi by the time we got to where the others were waiting. Of course, the fact that he had a large bruise, the colour of rotting fruit, covering one eye, and a heavily ripped robe, was an added bonus. It's entirely his fault that we're in this mess; him and his attempts to get Haruhi distracted in something new that he thought might be safe. Yeah. Because, of course, introducing her to this kind of insanity had to be a good idea.

But after a small amount of righteous satisfaction over his appearance, my concern immediately went to the poor figure of Asahina-san. She was under a pile of blankets, hair drenched, the light in her eyes dimmer than the cosmic background radiation. Even as I watched, she sneezed.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She nodded, and gave a smile like a sun through rain clouds. "I-I-I'm fine," she managed, through chattering teeth. "Cold..."

"She's fine," interjected the Ultra-Inquistor. "Now, come on, Yuki. You're coming with me!" And with that said, she left once again, red-robed, cybertentacled figure in tow. Carrying a book in her cybertentacle, it might be noted.

"What happened?" I asked, turning on Koizumi.

He gave a shrug, eyes... almost looking nervous, actually, from what I could see of them. "Asahina-san was eaten by a Malanthope."

"A what!" I shouted. "And... she doesn't look very eaten."

"Gooey," the clearly traumatised girl said. "Slimy. Ick."

Koizumi raised his hands up, shaking his head. "No, no. She hardly got eaten at all. And, anyway, Nagato..." he paused, searching for words, "rectified the situation."

"Rectified? What do you mean by that!"

"I mean, 'rectified'," Koizumi said, clearly. "Believe me, you don't want to know."

"I think I do!"

"No, you really don't."

"I do!"

"You don't." He took a deep breath. "Trust me on that. It was... messy."

"Everywhere..." Asahina-san's teeth chattered. "Goo." She looked up, eyes filled with tears. "I want everything to go back to normal. Even in your normal timeframe, it's better than classified information, because of the classified information. This classified information is a contrafactual classified information."

I glanced sideways at Koizumi. "Did you get anything from that?"

"Goo," he said, smirking annoyingly. "I'm merely kidding," he hastily added, flashing a grin at me. "Though that raises a fresh set of questions. Is there a past to return to? In fact, what makes you so sure that we are in the future?"

The laser guns and giant space bugs were a bit of a clue.

"But that is not a clear statement. All that tells you is that we are not in the place which we came from, in the time we came from... or that there has been a massive re-write of history to ensure that the now that was is no longer the now that will be and is now, and yet we remain at the same time and place."

I hate time travel. And history rewriting.

"Well, what do we do then?" I asked. "And, yes, I still remember that this is all, exclusively, and entirely your fault."

Koizumi looked back, squinting slightly. "Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get."

That doesn't answer anything. And, anyway, you were playing Guildenstern at the culture festival; that isn't your line.

He merely glanced at me, a smug look on his face. It would have been more annoying, if he didn't look like that all the time.

"I d-d-don't have contact with classified information," added Asahina-san, from under her pile of blankets. "I-I-I think my past has been r-r-rewritten by classified information."

I glanced at her. "Was the last word, 'Haruhi'?" I asked.

"Classified information." The words were flat, and as devoid of vitality as Asahina-san herself; she was like a pale reflection of her normal charm. Of course, any Narcissus would be honoured to fall in love with a surface of water which displayed such an image.

"Right," I said. "So... given we have no clue what's going on, what do you think Haruhi is doing?"

"I believe Suzumiya-san expressed interest in obtaining transport," said Koizumi.

And, indeed, when she returned, without a single word of explanation we found ourselves hustled into a grotesquely overdone aircraft thing, which turned out to be a spacecraft thing, as the azure sky out the windows faded to black. Subtle attempts to get Haruhi to explain exactly what was going on were entirely futile; she just sat there in her wide-brimmed hat, grinning like she was about to lead some poor innocent girl through a surreal adventure through a world that made no sense whatsoever.

Oh, wait.

Finally, I just asked her.

She shrugged at me. "Oh. We're off to see the Rogue Trader."

Why would you want to go and buy make-up?

I received a glare that seemed to indicate that I was some kind of naughty student. "No, I said "Rogue" Trader, not "Rouge" Trader. Idiot."

Is there a difference?

"Yes." She paused, looking thoughtful. "Although Mikuru-chan does look a little bedraggled. Even after I went and cleaned all the bug blood and saliva off her. Do you know how much scrubbing that took?"

The charmingly dishabille beauty, clad in her tatters and pieces of parchment (if they had taken damage in her near consumption, it was not noticeable), who sat facing me and clutching her ridiculous chainsaw sword, flinched, a desperate look filling those voluminous eyes. It was obviously that she was silently appealing to me... to anyone to aid her.

I am sorry, Asahina-san. Would that I could have helped you. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

"I think she really does need a make-over," continued Haruhi, her lecherous and perverted eyes staring right at the other girl's breasts. "Maybe something in... huh. Look, Kyon. Mikuru-chan has a little mole, right on her breast. Looks... maybe, sort of star-shaped. I wonder if the star is lucky?"

Yes, of course, I am actually aware of it. In fact, I sort of discovered it. I say "sort of", because... argh, causal loops.

Have I mentioned that I hate time travel, and it gives me a headache, yet?

I wonder if Asahina-san (elder) has followed us to this place? I mean, it's the future, right, so it should be closer to her than it is to us, and so she'll know how to deal with it better. Unless it's in her future, too... that is, her future from the viewpoint of whenever she comes from, as well as the now... not the now-now, but the now-now that we used to have come from and should be going back to, as opposed to the now-to-be that she has come from... that's the now that Asahina-san (elder) presumably spends time in, as opposed to the now that Asahina-san (younger) lives in, which is our now.

Ow. Headache.

Meanwhile, of course, Haruhi had started poking the mole, seemingly intrigued by it, to a backing chorus of Asahina-san's wails and squeaks. I would have stepped in to prevent such an abomination, lechery and evil molestation in a way that knew no limits, but, to my eternal sorrow, we were strapped in, as the craft pulled out of the atmosphere, and so I was forced to watch the whole extended abuse, unable to do a thing. Also, I was trying to work out how the timeline works. Honestly. I'm not lying. I didn't enjoy having to watch it. That would be horrible.

Still, at least she was just trying to get a ride on someone's ship. That has to be an improvement, right? I mean, yes, she won't pay for it, and yes, she'll probably try to take the best rooms, and threaten to shoot anyone who tries to stop her. I was worrying about that, all the way to the bridge of the ship; a cavernous space filled with technology with the same general aesthetics as Nagato, and lots of ornately dressed people.

There was a surprisingly tinny-sounding chorus of trumpets, and a man who seemed to have had a rather nasty accident with a speaker system stepped forwards.

"All rise," he said, in a squeaky, slightly nasal voice which actually sounded rather familiar. "Hail to the Generalissimo-Supreme-In-Chief, Prince of the Western Marches, Monopolist of the Cudgel of the Cognitors, Lord High Princep of the Free House of Ordinator, Bearer of a Scroll of Warranty signed by his Imperial Divine Majesty, the God-Emperor himself."

"That title contains redundant elements," stated Nagato. It was amazing, actually, how the apparent replacement of her entire vocal apparatus with machinery had not affected her capacity for expressing emotional depth one bit. And had, from attempts to get clarification on what was going on back during the fighting, only enhanced her capacities for polysyllabic chains of words (which she might have viewed as an explanation, but which a poor mortal like me had no chance against), by removing whatever need for breathing she had. "It would be more efficient to abbreviate it. As it stands, it obfuscates understanding." A pause. "All hail the Machine God."

Thank you, Nagato.

The faint look of outrage on the speaker's face, such of it which did not appear to be an amp, was washed away of by the appearance of the aforementioned individual. And when I saw him, my jaw fell open. This was for two reasons, and the first of these was his moustache. It was an impressive moustache. Long, thick and luscious, it was in fact wider that his head. There were decorations on it. It was braided with what looked like gold. Unconsciously, I brushed my top lip.

The second of these was that the moustache was attached to what appeared to be the Computer Club President.

I suddenly knew how this was going to go.

"Who's in charge here?"

Haruhi smiled, her smile orca-like; seemingly funny and self-important, just before she rips you in half and eats you. Metaphorically.

"Did you not just hear my announcer?" the not-the-Computer-Club-President-honestly asked, in an almost braying tone. "I am the Generalissimo-Supreme-In-Chief..."

Haruhi flapped her hand at him. "I don't really care. Just give me a ship."

Why ask if you don't care, damn it? If you don't notice, Haruhi, there are a lot of heavily armed people around here. There are only five of us, and, much as it would amuse me to see Koizumi injured in a non-lethal manner, neither Asahina-san nor myself would cope as well to things like laser pistols and pistols that shoot rockets which blow up inside the target.

In fact, I think I'm allergic to them.

The Rogue Trader displayed a "What the hell?" expression and violently shook his head. "That most certainly will not do. I, and my family for twenty generations, have fought to build up this flotilla. To do such a thing... that would dishonour both me, and my house! I most certainly cannot give them to you for free. Do you think I'm a fool?"

Haruhi shrugged, "What does it matter? Just one would do." Her eyes glinted in the light streaming from the screens and machines with blinking red buttons. "You have plenty anyways!" she said, in a more confrontational tone.

"That is..." The Rogue Trader squinted at us. "Wait a moment. Who are you people? How did you even get an appointment."

Haruhi tapped the hat that nestled on the top of her mass of dark hair. "I'm Ultra-Inquisitor Haruhi Suzimya, an Agent of His Glorious Inquisition, and these are Tech-Priestess Yuki, Sanctionite Itsuki, Sister Repentia Mikuru-chan, and the others."

Wait, at least give them my name!? And at least, if you don't actually know my real name, then at least give them what everyone calls me! Seriously! You name the others, but not me! At least the last time, I was Subordinate Two. I was more important in the nameless minion stance. Now, I'm the only minion, and the others are your quirky minibosses.

Even if that's technically true... it doesn't matter! And what do you mean, 'others'. There's only one, and that's me! Argh!

"I command you in the name of the God-Emperor, and the Inquisition: you will give me a ship immediately! Don't give me any excuses!"

The Rogue Trader hurriedly bowed his head, in an obviously feigned motion of respect. "Of course, my Lady, we will be more than happy to take you where you wish. But... with the greatest respect, be reasonable. I won't just give you a ship."

"Since you've said that, well, we have our ways." Haruhi's eyes glared, without a trace of fear. Oh no, that is a bad omen; I'm sure that on the planet below, sons of kings are dropping dead and comets filling the sky! I think... no, she's not getting into character too much. She is just like this, all the time.

Haruhi pushed Asahina-san, who was standing paralysed next to her (obviously, she knew what was coming, too) straight into the Rogue Trader, knocking him to the ground. And with a boot to the side of the ribs, she rolled the entwined pair, so he was pinning Asahina-san to the ground.

"Wha~aaaa!!"

"Oww! My ribs!!"

"Molesting a Sister of Battle? A Daughter of the Emperor!" Haruhi wagged one pale finger (the other hand still holding the man's hand to Asahina-san). "Why, that's not good. In fact, it's HERESY!" The last words were roared with far too enthusiasm.

And that was where it went wrong. Sadly, despite his incredible (I would use the word 'impossible', but this scenario involves Haruhi, and she usually views that, subconsciously as a temptation) resemblance to the Computer Club President, the Rogue Trader was a debauched pirate and mercenary most akin to some rapacious merchant-prince of the East India Company. With a whirl of guns, the people that surrounded us were indicating that any moves would be a terminal idea.

The Computer Club didn't have guns, Haruhi, you know.

The Rogue Trader began to laugh. "That... that's rich. You stand before me," he almost spat, his deferential manner gone, "and try to steal my ships. I offered you a compromise. I made accommodations. But you... you had to throw around your weight like some Schola Progenia whelp. So be it. I would say that I'm not going to enjoy having to kill you... but, frankly, you deserve it." He knelt up, still keeping the poor, defenceless Asahina-san pinned under him. "Thank you for the gift, by the way," he added, with a smirk worthy of Koizumi... who incidentally, was very much not smirking, and looked roughly a tenth as worried as I felt. And I was about as enraged as I was worried. I wanted to throttle that bastard, choke him to death. I just had to get him with the melting gun-thing, as soon as he got off poor Asahina-san. And... well, if the Ultra Inquisitor was in the way, it would be a favour to the world. She can't pull the same damn trick twice, especially on people with guns, let alone the abuse she was heaping on an innocent girl.

I was going to kill Haruhi, except the people with the guns were going to get there first.

Surprisingly, our proud and ever-so-glorious leader grinned, a wide, predatory smile. "I don't think so. Yuki. The Big Red Button."

Nagato presented a large contraption of brass and steel from under her robes, which, yes, did have a big red button on it. Which also glowed. Silently, she passed it to our deranged leader.

"Do you want to me to press the Big Red Button", she asked the Rogue Trader. "Also, get off Mikuru-chan. She's mine."

You can't own people, Haruhi. Of course, I'm not going to say anything, because, technically, overall, you will be the one which leads to less torment for poor Asahina-san, and a lesser degree of abuse... but don't think that I won't remember this.

Slowly, the brown-haired man with the moustache climbed off the girl, who huddled into a ball. "What does the big red button do," he asked warily.

Haruhi's grin, if at all possible, grew wider. "Yuki?"

Our Tech-Priest stepped forwards. "The button is the end-user interface of a narrow-band, high penetration communications device. By pressing the button, the signal programmed into the internal cognitor will be sent to all attuned devices, and activate the appropriate pre-programmed function," she said. There was a pause. "All hail the Machine God," she said, in a monotone.

"Yuki." Haruhi paused. "I mean... what effect does pressing the button have," she said, a little wearily.

"Oh. The triggered command will induce an unstable anti-hydrogen catalysed hydrogen-to-helium burn in clusters of three plasma warheads which were previously placed in the cargo holds of the following vessels; the Fugatum, the Lucre, the Prophet of Mammon, the Deus Est Machina, and the Apocalyptica. From the observed schematics of the ships, the blasts have been engineered to propagate in a way such that they will destroy the Gellar Fields, and cripple the main power distribution grids in a way that makes travel through the medium known as the Immatterium impossible until the systems are fixed, with a probability that varies between twenty-four-point-nine-nine-three-four percent and seventy-one-point-four-one-zero-three percentage of utterly destroying the vessel, by igniting the internal reactors of the vessels. Moreover, this system lacks the technological capacity to do so. The cost of repairs and replacing the cargo, including the opportunity cost of profiting from this warzone, are estimated to be four-point-zero-four-nine-three-one times the cost of replacing this vessel." She paused. "All hail the Machine God."

So, there will be an explosion, and it will be expensive, right, Nagato? I really didn't understand that. It didn't help that Koziumi wouldn't even lend me the sourcebooks, as he claimed he had to 'prepare the game'. Why the hell would he do such a thing?

The Rogue Trader blanched. "By the Emperor!" he swore. "How... how... how..." He swallowed. "You're bluffing," he blurted out.

Haruhi flashed white teeth at him, idly smoothing the sleeve with her "Ultra-Inquisitor" armband on it. "But do you want to risk it? Especially since that button is tied to my vitals. If it helps," and the aura of self-satisfaction was getting intolerable, and I spend a lot of time around Koizumi, so that's saying something, "you can check the cargo manifests. I believe all those ships have just received priority deliveries from the planet, yes?"

So that was what you and Yuki were doing, yes. I expected better of you, Nagato. I mean, Haruhi was always going to act like this, but you normally don't do this kind of thing.

I glanced at the red-robed girl. If anything, she was even harder to read than usual, given the profusion of cybernetics, and, of course, the hood, but I got the distinct feelings that she was enjoying herself as much as she had in that computer game against the real Computer Society. I suppose, she got to outwit people, and blow up spaceships then, as well.

Perhaps it might even be called a hobby.

Well, after that, it didn't take long to evict the somewhat-annoyed Rogue Trader, and those of his senior crew who could fit on the smaller-spacecraft in the hangars, and for Nagato to report that the machine-spirit had been taken over (and Haruhi to tell me that we needed to change the logos to the Brigade badge). We still had a mass of subordinates who had to run the ship, of course. Well, they're all getting inducted into the SOS Brigade, I'm pretty sure. And now this society, which isn't even recognised, now has a spaceship all of its very own.

Technically, if one were to ask the school, I think this spacecraft might actually belong to the Literature Club. And, thus, as the head of the society, Nagato. Well, I suppose it's better than Haruhi having it. And by 'suppose', I mean, 'know'.

The Rogue Trader turned to face us, as he stepped into his lavish shuttle. "So... you think you have won this one, little girl." He spat on the floor. "But know this. I will hunt you down! I will have my revenge, and I will reclaim my flagship! YOU HAVE EARNED THE ETERNAL WRATH OF HOUSE ORDINATOR!" he roared.

Haruhi, naturally, stood unflinching. Because she has the approximate survival instincts of a member of Succinea putris infected with Leucochloridium paradoxum, it might be noted.

We watched as the shuttle flared its engines, tracking it as it receded into the distance.

"Yuki, well, now that's over, pass me the Big Red Button, please," said Haruhi, taking off her hat, and running one hand through her hair.

Nagato flashed a glance at me, obviously taking my lack of response as approval. In all honesty, I was just exhausted. I wasn't thinking. I certainly didn't want her to do it, even if it would ruin that bastard of a Rogue Trader, and stop them chasing after us.

And if I nodded my head, it was only because I was trying not to fall asleep. It had been an exhausting time, after all, having to fight all those dinosaur bugs. I'm not like Haruhi, after all; I'm not that monstrous, and certainly wouldn't tell Nagato to let her kill all those people. Really.

With a smirk, she pressed the button. Points on the sensors imitated SN 1006, forming rapidly dispersing nebulae. A single command to Yuki, and the shuttle was swatted out the sky by the cannons on our new acquisition.

I didn't say anything.

"Oh, come on," she said loudly, flicking her head. "You know how this kind of thing works. We offend evil person, the evil person gets angry, swears eternal vengeance, sends assassins, bounty hunters, and eventually his own minions after us. Eventually, we have a dramatic showdown in a place which blows up when we kill the evil person. This way, we get to keep the ship, and don't have to put up with this kind of waste of time. I mean, we're the good guys, so we're going to win in the end anyway, so we can do this kind of thing, because it wastes less time."

Yeah. We're not exactly paragons of virtue, you know. Well, Asahina-san is, but Koizumi is Annoying Neutral, Nagato is... Nagato and you're quite possibly the Demiurge. And even if that's wrong, you're acting like a Player Character.

"Suzumiya," Koizumi interjected, "what do you think we should do first? Now that your ingenious plan to get us a vessel has succeeded."

Yeah, suck up, why don't you?

Haruhi, true to form, pointed dramatically at the sky, or, in this case, the ceiling, which was low enough that Koziumi and I were having to watch for bulkheads. "We go... to eat" she declared.

"The Eat system is currently 24,000 light years from our current location, and would require us to pass through multiple stellar astrogation hazards, including the Palenu Traverse." Pause. "All hail the Machine God."

"Yuki. I meant food."

"Oh."

{A's N: Among the chapters of the Kyon Archive, this is one of the more reliable, and easy to confirm that the events had at least some basis in fact. I managed to find a relative of the Rogue Trader featured within, having stumbled across him (purely by accident, in a separate investigation) about twenty-four years, from my point of view, after these incidents. When I met him, he was a broken man, reduced to a single obsolete vessel; the sole possessions of the House. Nevertheless, he still had records, and from the orbital survey they had conducted as the loyal Imperial forces drove Splinter Fleet Atlas away from the world, I have been able to build up a fairly good image of the campaign. For example, it appears that Inquisitor Suzumiya did, in fact, kill a Tyranid Hierophant Bio-Titan, although the local Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus reports claim that the creature had been subjected to extended bombardment from artillery, which had smashed its carapace. It was, as a result, still regenerating when the Inquisitor engaged it on foot. That was, at least, the only explanation that they could find for the massive exoskeletal deterioration displayed by the beast. However, from my exposure to the Tech-Priest that accompanied Inquisitor Suzumiya, who (even from my observations) took the technosorcery of the Mechanicus well beyond what one of her rank should have been able to do, I do suspect that the individual identified as "Yuki" in the Kyon Archives was somehow involved, even if the precise method cannot be ascertained.

After that, of course, the account deteriorates into madness once again, in his discussions with the other member of the Inquisitor's Retinue, before returning to something akin to reality, with the method used by Inquisitor Suzimiya to obtain a ship. While I have no such need for such crudity (a personal vessel is not exactly hard to obtain, when you are in service as the Left Hand of the Emperor), I have know other esteemed colleagues to use not dissimilar methods, especially when a Rogue Trader gets... difficult. Sometimes they have problems remembering that no-one is beyond the Inquisition, used as they are to the freedom experienced out near the Fringes.}