Disclaimer: Haruhi Suzumiya series and Warhammer 40k are owned by their respective owners.
A/N: Hi.
This story is grimdark, in a demeaning and mocked definition of the term ("oh, so the author guy hurt helpless innocent characters, he must think he is sooo edgy and interesting, while in truth the story is just a boring slog, full of twisted wish fulfillment and bullshit").
Well, yes. This is also a revised version, meaning I actually went back and fixed grammar errors (and also introduced new, unique and exciting ones, no doubt about it) two years and six months after the story was written. Better late than never, I guess.
Let's begin.
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August 31st
Chapter 1: Mystery
It was August 31st, the last day of the summer vacation and Kyon's life. Well, not exactly "life", as losing two weeks of memories and getting a brand new chance to start over would hardly be called "death" by anyone Kyon knew. Still, as he sat and stared at piles of textbooks he collected to finally start doing summer homework, his thoughts inevitably returned to the fact that after that midnight he was going to cease to exist. Disappear. Die.
"Kyon-kun, your phone!" his sister called from downstairs.
"Right, in a moment!"
He rushed to a first floor and grabbed his ringing cell from a table, knocking some crayons to the floor. His sister seemed to collect around forty of them and was currently enthusiastically drawing a rather grotesque picture.
Kyon flipped open his phone. A message flashed on the screen, "Incoming call: Koizumi Itsuki".
…right, because listening to some obscure esoteric nonsense is *exactly* what I need right now…
"Kyon listening. What is it?" he said rather rudely.
The person on the other end of the line didn't seem to care. "Good day, Kyon. Have you been watching the news today?"
"No, I haven't. I've been trying to do my homework". The keyword here was obviously trying, not doing, but Kyon didn't emphasize on that. The last thing he needed at that time was Koizumi thinking he gave up completely after what happened in the café the day before.
"If you are at home right now, you should turn on your TV. I would say at this point it doesn't matter what channel. I'll hold."
Kyon retrieved the remote from a pile of crayons and switched the TV on. To his surprise, the sports channel was broadcasting news. The camera was showing, with tags "live" and "no comments", a town square where a crowd of people has gathered.
And in the middle of the square was a pyramid.
Well, there was nothing inherently wrong with the pyramid. Sure, gleaming metal pyramids the size of five-storey buildings don't normally appear out of nowhere. And, case in point, most pyramids don't have a giant refractive crystal affixed at the top. But living close to a cosmic horror Haruhi was, by that point Kyon wasn't really surprised by a sudden appearance.
That being said, the thing wasn't entirely right either. The street around it, the people, the sky – everything was clear and normal. The pyramid itself – not so much. Like air above asphalt on a hot day, a thin layer of green was shimmering around the pyramid, distorting the camera feed.
"Ugh…" Kyon finally managed to choke out, much to Itsuki's delight.
"Oh, I see you are amazed as well, aren't you, Kyon?"
"Amazed is not the right word, Koizumi." Kyon glanced at his sister, who was now busy incorporating the pyramid into her drawing.
"I am sure you would like to know more about this matter. We are having a meeting right now at Nagato's apartment, and you are most welcome here."
"We?"
"Naturally, there's Yuki here, Asahina-san is about to arrive and Suzumiya-san is missing at the moment. I would ask of you to call her, maybe you will have better luck than me."
…yeah, she'd better answer for what she had done…
"I'll be there. See you."
"Awaiting with great anticipation."
Kyon closed the phone, sighed and immediately drowned in a stream of questions that originated somewhere inside his sister. After saying for the tenth time that no, he didn't know what's going on, and no, he wasn't going outside to look at the strange thing, he was in fact going to meet with his boring adult friends in the place where there was no TV, Kyon finally managed to get dressed and reach the door.
His sister executed her last resort tactic – grabbed him and made puppy eyes. "Kyoooon-kun, take me with you, I promise I'll be good!"
"Absolutely not!"
Kyon somehow managed to break free from the death grip and turned around, looking as sternly as a typical seventeen year old could. "You are going to stay home and be a very, very bad girl!"
And, taking the initiative and ignoring his sister's puzzled expression he finished with appropriate aplomb. "Yes, that's right. I, Kyon, hereby officially allow you, my sister, to be a very bad girl and watch TV and play video games on the entirety of this very day, the thirty-first of August!"
Kyon took a deep breath and awaited reaction. It didn't surprise him one bit.
"Yay!" she shouted, ran back and, judging from the sound of it, immediately plugged in the game controller. It seemed that the unmoving pyramid already became a boring sight for her.
"I'll be home by dinner!"
Kyon's only response was sound of a videogame intro, so he sighed and quietly closed the front door behind him. The street was nearly empty, thanks to the midday heat and the fact many of easily impressionable people rushed to the spot where the pyramid appeared.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
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"I wonder if any exist…" Haruhi said thoughtfully, observing the tiny red disc in the sky through a telescope.
"Who?"
"Martians!"
"I'd rather they didn't," Kyon remarked and got an approving nod from Mikuru as a reward. Haruhi turned away from the ocular and stared right at him, slightly frowning.
"And why is that?"
"Because the prospect of meeting a multi-tentacled thing is really not a prospect anyone besides you would ever consider fun."
Haruhi pouted and returned to observing the red planet. "They could be a friendly bunch, you know. Living in underground caverns and waiting for us to come… and then they would all come out and greet us…" she trailed off. Kyon looked at Isuki, who just shrugged in response. Silence descended upon the roof of Yuki's apartment building.
"All right, I'm bored. Let's look out for UFO! UFO!" Haruhi began spinning the telescope wildly and Kyon sighed.
…I really, really wouldn't like to meet any more aliens in the nearest future…
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The door opened and Kyon was greeted by the owner of the apartment in her usual manner – that being creepy unblinking stare.
"Hello Yuki. Feeling well today?" Kyon asked. Not that she looked anything out the ordinary, but Kyon became more and more annoyed lately of conversations with her that lasted for about thirty seconds.
"Yes."
…blink, Yuki, blink! I know you can do it! I've seen you doing it, right? Right?...
"So… may I come in?"
"Yes."
She stepped to the side and Kyon entered the room. It seemed that nothing catastrophic has happened yet, as Itsuki was smiling his usual brand fake smile and Mikuru was sitting and quietly sipping tea. As Kyon walked in, she smiled and waved to him.
"Good day, Kyon-kun."
"And good day to you too, Asahina-san." Saying that, Kyon noticed that something was, in fact, out of the ordinary – the eastern wall of the barren room was now covered by enormous plasma TV showing live feed from town square, and there were no signs of Haruhi's presence in the room.
"Since when do you have a TV, Nagato?"
"Morning."
"Have you called Suzumiya-san?" Itsuki interrupted, and Kyon noticed that esper's smile was a little too strained.
"Yes, I did, three times. She seems to be out of network coverage. "
"It's the same with me. Her home number isn't answering either." Itsuki sat and poured tea into a spare cup. "Would you like some tea?"
…I'd prefer to take tea from Asahina-san, not you, Mr. Too Close For Comfort…
Kyon, however, didn't say anything as he sat next to Mikuru and drank the tea. A few minutes passed in silence. The tea reserves ran dry and Kyon felt he had to say something.
"So… are we going to just sit here and watch the gleaming green pyramid on TV till midnight?"
"Monolith."
Yuki was still standing, her gaze fixed on the strange structure. Silence again started creeping into the room, and Kyon felt a strong urge to do something, anything, just to not let that horrible silence take hold again.
"Yuki, no disrespect, but for something to called a "monolith" that thing has to be, you know, monolithic. Like, not being covered by multiple plates of metal and not having a distinct crystal at the top." He was running out of breath, but continued nevertheless. "And as crystal and metal is not the same object, it's not…" Kyon's air supply ran out and Yuki turned her head slightly to face him.
"Monolith. A single data-energy entity of unknown origin. Metallic and crystalline artificial objects, shaped to fulfill certain objective, namely, containment of data-energy within. Further analysis impossible at the moment."
…oh-ho-ho, here we go again. Now let's hear Itsuki's long-winded explanation of how this is all a will of almighty Haruhi and Mikuru's speech about classified information. Not that I would object to that last part, of course…
Suddenly, Kyon found out that everyone in the room were looking at him, probably expecting him to evaluate Yuki's assessment. A most uncomfortable situation indeed.
"Yeah, sure, Yuki, whatever you say. Let's call it "monolith", although it's still a pyramid-shaped, right?"
"Yes"
"E-excuse me?" Mikuru raised her hand shyly. "Is it dangerous?"
"Unknown."
"Hey, what do you mean by that "unknown"? You've been living through this day for something like four hundred years by now! Are you going to tell me now this is the first time something like this happened?"
Yuki's expression never changed as she watched Kyon's outburst, and for a moment he thought she would just say "Yes", and they would sink hopelessly into a discussion of what the hell was that thing in the TV.
Then, Yuki blinked and turned away, her voice muted and somehow pained. "I… was never able to synchronize with a version of "me" that exists at August 31st. All the versions hold information up until our yesterday's meeting at the café with Haruhi Suzumiya. Beyond that… I am sorry."
Kyon didn't really know what to respond to that. Last time he had seen Yuki like that was after a swimming pool event, when he asked her if everything was all right. "I'm fine," she said back then, and her sullen and pained expression was the same.
"I think we are about to find an answer to a question of Asahina-san," Itsuki said and pointed to the screen. Kyon noticed that esper wasn't smiling anymore.
At the side of the monolith, a large panel was sliding upward, revealing a swirling pool of sickly-green energy. Kyon now noticed that there were no idle bystanders around the pyramid – they were all pushed behind a military cordon and a few APC's were visible in the background.
The surface of an energy pool rippled, and from within, a floating construct emerged. Roughly the size of a large car, it bore an uncanny resemblance to a common bug, or rather an emaciated spider – save for a translucent green tube that was attached to where its left forward leg should have been.
…no, they are not going to say "hi", Haruhi. They are definitely not going to say "hi"…
With a low unnatural hiss the creature shuddered and from its insides, hundreds of tiny metallic scarabs poured out on the ground and rushed towards nearest APC. Fifty, thirty, ten meters…
"Yuki!" Kyon shouted and the TV screen immediately went blank. In the distance, one of the office buildings collapsed, and everyone in the room could make out a shape of another, smaller monolith emerging from the ruins.
"We must find Suzumiya-san. Now." Itsuki stood up and went to the door.
"K-koizumi-kun? Where are you going?" Mikuru asked. On "Mikuru breakdown" scale, she was currently somewhere at the level "terrified but not going to cry yet", which was a good thing given the circumstances.
"To her apartment, then the school clubroom. Then every place she visited frequently in the last two weeks."
…knowing her, she would probably be in the crowd, gawking at the monolith…
Itsuki reached for the knob, but the door didn't budge. "Nagato, what is the meaning of this?"
"Area unsafe."
On the parallel street, a newly emerged monolith was gliding silently, and from its side portal, metallic warriors were marching, though they were way too far to make out their individual details. Kyon's phone beeped and he opened it. Two lines on screen:
"No network."
"Emergency calls only."
Then, with another beep the lower line disappeared.
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