One Little Day
A Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi fanfic, by MrCJ

Be warned, this is not a happy read.

One sunrise, he goes to school.
One morning, he gets a note.
One afternoon, he enters a classroom, to be met with a smile--and a knife.

One evening, the school is taped shut with police tags and vans.

One day he's a schoolboy. Another, he's a secret agent of a hidden organisation. On others still, he's an Esper, flitting around in a blaze of red, fighting giants in a world of gray.

Today, he's confused as all hell.

It happened so suddenly. The surveillance teams didn't even spot it, and they were watching through the windows, with binocular and scope. There was an Interface there, they'd said. He'd be safe, they'd said.

Before they knew what was happening, he was splattered across the chalkboard like a butcher's draw, they'd said.

Now there's utter chaos; the Data Entity ignoring all it's calls, his superiors giving conflicting information... and he's not even sure which day it's meant to be. And absolutely no-one can contact the time-travellers.

All around him, on the telephones, at the desks, in hushed whispers barely heard over the chaotic din, only one question stands.

"Does she know?"

It's the next day. She knows. So does the news. The entire goddamn world knows.

Mikuru's gone too. Half the Interfaces have apparently vanished, and he can only say 'apparently' because no-one can contact the damn Entity to find out just what the hell is happening.

He doesn't go to school that day. It's tied up with tape.

Haruhi calls an SOS meeting. Her voice is shaky and crying. He's the only one who shows up.

And now he knows exactly what's going to happen.

Out of the blue, he finds Nagato. He's on a street, one day in the rain. She's missing an arm. It's sparking, giving off white little flakes as if disintegrating, but the length of the stump doesn't change. When he inquires, Nagato simply cites 'Technical Difficulties'. She's using a witch's outfit he didn't even know she had to hide the arm, complete with hat, despite still wearing her old uniform.

She doesn't respond about that. Her glasses simply glint.

He asks her where she's been, and she says "Hiding". He asks her from who, she says "The rest".

Turns out the Integrated Sentient Data Entity isn't Integrated anymore.

He stops trying to contact Kimidori and Asakura.

It's getting worse. People are forgetting. When he shows them a picture of a cute, smiling girl whose face was built to be burned into the brains of every male within sighting distance, people forget. They compliment, they ask if she's available. They do not know her.

The Organisation is disintegrating around itself. He has to check the records himself.

There is no longer a Mikuru Asahina. Period. Ever. She does not have a home, she does not have a school certificate, she does not have a name. Not even Tsuruya can recognise her, and she spends five minutes scratching her head trying.

He feels as if he's standing on a trainwreck that's already happened, but everyone else is still trying to jump off.

It's another day, and he's lucky he chose to spend it at a friends house.

Sonou Mori is dead. Half of the Organisation's upper echelon staff is dead.

Most of fucking Okinawa is dead.

The sharks in the water have finally scented the blood; the Sky Canopy Domain has declared war.

School is still tied up. The Organisation is a burning husk. They haven't responded to a Shinjin for weeks, and not for lack of Space.

He isn't sure who he is anymore.

He isn't sure what day it is.

He just knows he needs to run.

Clinically, he can see why.

The Peacemaker is gone. The person who represented the ordinary, the common man, the potential that this entire situation could cool down and everything go to back normal has been erased.

In the process, he has broken the gatekeeper, as the gatekeeper let him leave. And now the Canopy has flooded through the gap to claim it's prize, before the prize can hit her little reset button and bring the Peacemaker back, wiping it's chances.

That doesn't mean he likes watching Kuyoh Suou walk away, dragging Haruhi screaming by the hair. How anyone who tries to stop her simply slices apart to offal on the street.

How the carbomb has taken off one of his legs at the knee, stopping him from trying anyway. How Arakawa simply bleeds onto the steering wheel of the upturned armoured car and refuses to move. How Tachibana - still alive - is trying so very hard not to be sick, but still isn't stopping her anyway.

Clinically, he can see why they'd put a bullet through his brain only after they drag her out of sight.

That doesn't mean he likes that, either.

One sunrise, Kyon goes to school.

One morning, he gets a note. He doesn't know why he feels a pit of apprehension at the little torn-out notebook-paper message, but he does.

One afternoon, he enters a classroom. He is met with a smile--and a knife.

He doesn't know why Nagato smashes through that wall so quickly, with such haste, but she does.

One evening, he lies back on his bed and sighs.

And the world keeps spinning.

Thanks be to Arty Esbee d'Arc for beta reading this fic. Your critique was a great help.