Story: Tainted Cube: Knowing

A little late, but I hope it's worth it. I also hope it helps clear up what Kyon's desire could be moving into NGE.


It’s amazing the things you can get used to. The long walk to school. Seeing all the girls wandering around in tiger-print bikinis as though it was their honest to goodness school uniform. Meeting with the four attractive, very peculiar in their own way girls that made up the club he’d been practically drafted into by his girlfriend. The insane ramblings of his hot bikini-clad girlfriend, the crazy schemes and experiments she’d come up with as a consequence of those ramblings. Then there was the regular, sweaty, pounding sex with said girlfriend. The way she’d pin him against the nearest surface with that particular glint in her eye. The sort he now associated with two things. The first being sex, the other being “If you even try to argue with whatever I’m about to suggest, don’t bother.”

And really, if the unlikely event that he decided against screwing his insanely hot bikini-clad girlfriend ever did come up he doubted it would take her ten seconds to change his mind with that impossibly talented tongue. Some girls tied cherry stems into knots. Haruhi Suzumiya could probably tie them all together into a chain while simultaneously engaged in a ventriloquist performance. What was more was her insatiable curiosity and imagination: Hey, let’s try this position today! I read somewhere it feels really good if this happens. I bet not many people have tried this! And so on, and so on. Funny thing was how absolutely and thoroughly mind blowing the sex was each and every single time, no matter how bizarre her suggestions or surreal the imagination she put into it. Every single time it was the same thing. He’d give her an askew glance as if checking if she was serious, then she’d bring out the props with a manic grin and he’d realise that yes, she was always very serious. Then they’d do <i>whatever</i> and he quite literally could not stop smiling for hours after. So far as he could tell, neither could she and that realisation always seemed to perk him up a little as well.

All of which may well add up to explain exactly why Kyon had found himself locked in the Brigade’s room after school, with his wrists and ankles handcuffed to Haruhi’s opposite wrists and ankles (left to right, right to left) while the two of them ate their way through different ends of a bar of chocolate.

Pretty sedate compared to yesterday with that jar of peanut butter, the harness and the feather duster but a good time was certainly being had by both participants. Kyon could tell because Haruhi was doing that kind of adorable thing she did where she very badly pretended she wasn’t about two clicks of a tongue away from climax.

Yep. It really was amazing the things you could get used to.

Above him were the signs he was starting to recognise quite easily. Haruhi’s body had started to tremble, sweat dripping from seemingly every pore on her magnificent body. Kyon ached to touch her breasts but the restrictive motion of the handcuffs left him unable to savour those wonderful soft mounds. Instead Haruhi’s arms compelled him to trail a line along her waist, which all things considered may well be the greatest consolation prize in history. Not that it mattered too much given that she had suddenly stopped all motion, letting her end of the chocolate drop from her lips as she let out the sound he’d been aching to hear since they’d begun. The sound of -

- Breasts. That didn’t make a lot of sense but breasts, large, perfectly rounded, topped with achingly hard, thimble-sized nipples, were suddenly very much on Kyon’s mind. That was because that was all he could see. And they weren’t his girlfriend’s lovely pair, though he could still hear and very much <i>feel</i> her against him and around <i>him</i>.

His vision expanded by no direction of his; in fact, the turning and jerking of his head and the movement of his eyes seemed to have no effect on what he saw.

Kyon’s mental confusion at this utterly bewildering turn of events abruptly halted as he now saw just to whom those magnificent and incredibly large breasts belonged. The heart-stoppingly beautiful woman lounging with an expression of perfect boredom upon her throne was none other than the Empress of Britannia. Now Kyon was not the sort of studious and overly interested boy to be able to recognize foreign heads of state on sight. But then most leaders of other countries were not essentially supermodels in terms of beauty nor did they have better figures than porn stars. Plus the towering pile of silver hair atop her head with twin lengthy curls dangling to either side of her face was pretty distinctive.

Kyon wondered if Haruhi had injected some psychotropic substance into that chocolate. He wouldn’t put it past her. It was the only explanation that he could come with for why this fantasy of his seemed so real. And fantasy it must be for surely Empress Charlotte didn’t hold court fully nude, right? Not that he was complaining…

Kyon silently wailed in protest as his vision left the Empress’s exquisitely perfect form to spin around, and he blinked (which had no effect on what he saw).

A dozen quite nude men and women stood arrayed before the Empress’s dais. And though each of the women were just as beautiful and finely formed as the Britannian nobility were reputed to be, his attention was wholly somewhere else.

That would be the giant video screen currently showing a map of the Pacific with his country colored a bright red. Small little symbols ringed the islands that he assumed were the navy. But what caught his breath were all of the massive blue and purple arrows converging upon Japan from almost every direction. As he watched the view expanded to take in the Britannian mainland and he could see the arrows originating along that coast.

Crap. Kyon’s stomach dropped and he felt his member soften somewhat despite Haruhi’s still exuberant humping. They really were going to attack. They were going to invade…

No, no. Stop. Surely this was just some sort of theoretical plan that would never be used because all of this was going to be sorted out diplomatically like it always was…

His vision suddenly shifted and floated forward and down towards the man who had been silently speaking and gesturing at the screen for some time now. Kyon was soon taking issue with whatever was controlling things as his sight drifted past several lovely naked women, each having breasts that easily surpassed Mikuru (though the comparison was unfair given that they were adults). Instead, he found himself focused on the nude man who, like the other males present, seemed to spend most of his free time in a gym.

The sound of Haruhi’s heaving breaths and passionate cries abruptly vanished to be replaced with the Brittanian’s deep, gravelly voice. “- All battle groups report full readiness and will be underway by 2300 Tuesday. Contact with Japanese naval forces should occur on Saturday and even using generous estimates of their combat effectiveness, the invasion of the islands will commence within two days after that.”

“Hey, girlfriend to Kyon! Wake up, Kyon! Don’t you know how rude it is to fall asleep on a girl like that?”

He was back in the clubroom, and his mouth was going like a goldfish. Unable to say even a single word. What was that? His vision cleared to find Haruhi’s beautiful face staring down at him inquisitively and a little bit annoyed as well.

“Sorry about that,” Kyon said. “It’s just that you wouldn’t believe what just happened to me.”

“Try me,” Haruhi said. Well, that was perhaps the least effectively worded thing he could have said when this girl was willing and able to believe or try just about anything. He only hoped she wouldn’t get too mad that he apparently started daydreaming about Britannian invasion plans.

<hr>

There are certain things one never really expects to hear a particular kind of person say: A politician telling the unabashed truth. A self-made millionaire proclaiming that he shall give his entire fortune away to the first person to ask. A scientist in the employ of a company proclaiming that their product is the most awful thing ever. You know. That sort of thing.

So, for Kyon to hear his girlfriend proclaim something to the effect of “I demand that you have sex with these other girls while I watch and take notes,” well, that’s the kind of thing that made him almost decide that he might as well do that. Then walk off into the whole wide world and do whatever he pleased because this was clearly not reality anymore. Though it did say something to him that his dreams would take such a surreal direction, when he was actually pretty happy with the girl he was dating and screwing on a regular basis.

Perhaps backing up a little bit to explain context would be of benefit.

To Kyon’s mind, Haruhi had been rather preoccupied since he had informed her of his peculiar vision last night while they were engaging in their rather physical experiments. In point of fact it had prompted another set of experiments entirely that revealed two interesting pieces of information.

First of all: He absolutely had to work on his stamina to keep up with this girl or she might just kill him one of these days.

Secondly: He would get those peculiar visions whenever she climaxed because of him. Whether because of his dick, his tongue or his fingers, it didn’t matter so long as he made her cum. His own climax didn’t matter at all. Well, except in the ways that it usually mattered, obviously.

Which led to her being uncharacteristically quiet all day. Even as they sat together for lunch, she barely said a word. Just sort of sat there, staring up at the sky while nibbling on her lunch and completely uncaring that she was wearing a rather tiny piece of swimwear. So little left to the imagination that it completely distracted him from talking about anything until lunch was already over as well.

By the time the day had ended she got a little bit of pep back. He could tell by the manner in which she grabbed hold of his collar and pulled him along towards the clubroom at a speed that should have probably literally broken his neck. Impossibly, both Yuki and River were there. The first in the corner, in her bikini uniform reading a book while the other had somehow managed to perch atop the windowsill with her ear pressed to it as if listening to the outside world. Mikuru arrived shortly afterwards, and it was honestly a bit of a miracle that any of the boys in her class were capable of simple addition while she was around. The bikini may well have been sufficient to conceal her very tremendous breasts, but it was quite lacking in preventing her from bouncing around with each motion she took. Sometimes it felt to Kyon that the only reason that Haruhi hadn’t bapped him on the head for leering was because she was too busy joining him.

“Good afternoon, everyone!” Mikuru cheerfully greeted. Yuki turned a page in her book. River lifted a finger to her lips. Haruhi smiled about a joke only she knew about, and Kyon took a seat with his back to the door. “So what are we doing today?”

“Having sex with Kyon!”

Not for the first time, Kyon hoped and wished that the doors were not so flimsy and thin enough that voices would not carry through it. In the process he very nearly fell off his chair. Yuki lifted her head to look towards the group, River slid off the windowsill while tapping her lips and Mikuru - bless the poor girl - fainted pretty much immediately. As for Haruhi, the only clue Kyon knew was the familiar sound of a door locking.

“Hey, come on!” Kyon said. “I never agreed to that! I mean, doesn’t that seem -”

“Sit down, dear!” Haruhi replied, pushing Kyon back into his seat easily. He always forgot somehow just how strong this girl really was. She draped her arms around his neck and nuzzled her cheek against his. “What’s wrong? I’m offering you the once-in-a-lifetime chance here! After all, don’t they all have their own appeal? I’m sure you’ve thought about Mikuru more than once while rubbing one out!”

Well, anyone would but that was entirely besides the point! “Never mind what I want. What about them? Do you really think they’d possibly agree to -”

“I will participate,” Yuki said. Cold and emotionless, yet just agreed to engage in the most intimate act any two people can perform. She set her book down, and it was probably the first time Kyon had actually seen her without one in hand.

“Eh?!” Mikuru gasped, apparently just woken up. “B-But this is so inappropriate! S-So naughty and - and - and -”

“And you’ll do it, won’t you, Mikuru?” Haruhi said, grabbing hold of Kyon’s wrist and forcing it directly onto the surface of Mikuru’s tiger-printed bikini top. The softness and the promise of what lay beneath was more than sufficient to make Kyon forget that he was not exactly in favour of this particular plan. “You just wait until you feel those fingers work their magic! I hate to admit it, but this boy knows a thing or two about keeping his woman happy!”

But it wasn’t merely tactile sensation that was distracting Kyon at the moment. The instant his hand had contacted Mikuru’s bra, she’d had the most peculiar reaction. She had stopped moving at the very same instant and a gradual pink hue rose up in her cheeks. Her breathing became increasingly laboured the longer the contact lingered until the very instant that she let out a sound that would perhaps be the most erotic Kyon was capable of imagining. It certainly went beyond anything he’d previously imagined! So this was what Haruhi had meant by moe!

“See?” Haruhi said rather enthusiastically. “Now, let’s find out what kind of images you wind up seeing with her help!”

Kyon was about to confirm with her if she was actually alright with that, because seriously that seemed kind of surreal, but he really didn’t get the chance to before the clubroom’s walls melted around him as Mikuru’s whimper took a sharp increase in tone -

A calendar zipped before Kyon’s eyes, showing a series of dates. Several marked in red, while others still were green or blue. Most had a name upon them, some of places and others people. It all went by far too quickly for Kyon to properly make sense of it all, but one date in particular stood out: Saturday lingered in his vision far longer than the others.

And the very next thing he saw was Mikuru’s smiling face as she flopped into a chair like a ragdoll. A particularly sexualised ragdoll taking deep, deep breaths after going through a remarkably easy orgasm. All he’d done was massage her breast, and she’d climaxed on the spot!

“Moe, big breasted, and super sensitive! I get more jealous all the time!” Haruhi said. “Yuki! You’re up!”

“Understood,” Yuki said, all of a sudden naked and standing right next to him. “Please proceed.”

… For a bookworm, she was as stealthy and quick as any ninja could dream of being! Weird though, he hadn’t really thought of Yuki in a sexualised context before now. She was just that strange, mostly quiet girl who liked to read in the corner and seemed to get on kind of well with River in some unspoken friendship. Or at least that was the impression he had. Who knows? But now that he was thinking about it, she had a completely different kind of appeal from Mikuru (or for that matter Haruhi, or any other girl he’d thought of that way). Even when she’d been wandering around in her bikini uniform, he hadn’t really seen anything but the girl sitting quietly and minding her own business.

Even so, Kyon just shook his head and backed away as if he’d become aware of some terrible threat. He barely acknowledged Haruhi rolling her eyes and snapping her fingers until River coughed and poured a bottle of water all over Mikuru’s chest. Any human being not distracted by the resulting sight was either dead, blind or unconscious. Particularly when Haruhi leaned in and kissed Mikuru full on the mouth, and dear god, if he got any more erect he’d cause himself an injury. On the whole, it was probably for the best that Yuki tackled him to the ground to help relieve him of that particular problem….

<hr>

Of all the ways to leave him a message. On a bookmark? When would he ever have the time to read a book that big given all the (good and bad) nonsense going on in his life right now?! Not that most people even knew about some of it, so maybe that wasn’t exactly a fair complaint. In which case maybe it was his fault for not checking the thing right away. Whatever! The park was in sight now, and he dashed straight for it. There she was! The one who gave him the book in the first place, sitting on a swing patiently waiting for him. Still in her school uniform.

The blue-haired class president Ryoko Asakura.

“Kyon!” she said. “You finally showed up. I thought you would never read the book I gave you, you naughty boy! I do hope Haruhi hasn’t been keeping you up at night.”

At night? No. At the very least she seemed to recognise that he absolutely needed his sleep and that his parents may perhaps find it suspicious if he started sneaking out of the house for an illicit rendezvous… Had suspicious enough looks dashing out of the house as he had just now anyway.

“Please come with me,” Asakura requested, hopping off the swing rather gracefully and almost but not quite skipping off past him with her hands behind her back. “There are certain things we absolutely have to discuss. But not here.”

“Excuse me, but… Where are we going?” he asked, feeling a little wary about being called out to meet with her in the manner she had employed. “And is this something you couldn’t have told me at school?”

“My place,” she said with a smile that somehow made that sound like an irresistible invitation. “And no. It’s really something that we should discuss in a more easily controlled environment.”

Had he just been invited into a girl’s home when that girl was not his girlfriend? Perhaps it was the simple unavoidable fact of what had happened in the clubroom earlier, but this did somehow feel like cheating on his girlfriend. You know. The half-mad one with the sane half that insisted he screw other girls while she watched. He sighed wearily and followed the class president to an apartment, all the while wondering exactly what point his life had turned into some sort of porn parody of high school life. As for Asakura, she stayed quiet and stared up at something all the time, smiling gently and warmly about something Kyon could but imagine.

As for the apartment itself, it seemed to be very expensive so far as Kyon could tell. Brightly lit yet bare of anything save a table and a warm blanket. No curtains, no carpet, no other furniture of any kind. It seemed to be a complete contradiction to the personality the girl had. It was almost like no human had ever lived here.

“Please, Kyon, sit down. We have a lot to talk about. Would you like some tea? It might make this a little easier for you to deal with.”

Kyon nodded and Asakura simply smiled and sat down opposite him. Then just sort of stared at him. It was extremely unnerving. No. “Terrifying” was probably the closer word to use in this context. And, hang on a moment. Didn’t she suggest she was going to get him tea?

“Don’t worry about the tea,” she said. “It will be here shortly.”

Ah. Okay then. Asakura giggled slightly to herself, and Kyon found himself wondering once again that same question that had been plaguing him since he’d first found the message. “Why did you want to speak to me? What can’t be said at school?”

“It’s about your girlfriend, of course. Haruhi Suzumiya. And me. And you. And a few others as well. You see, Kyon, there’s something we all have in common.”

The kitchen door suddenly creaked open and Kyon wondered for a moment who had opened it. The answer was a floating tray loaded with cups and a kettle and absolutely nobody carrying it. Before Kyon’s boggling eyes it set itself down upon the middle of the table while Asakura smiled innocently.

“Not a single one of us is an ordinary human being,” she said, turning that same exact tone of voice and expression into something much more bone chilling than Kyon could have ever imagined with just a few select words. “Oh, I am sorry if that startled you a little bit. I did it that way to ensure you did not misunderstand me and think I meant personality aberrations or anything like that. None of the three of us. Not you. Not me. Not Haruhi Suzumiya. Each of us is something different from a typical human being. Each of us has abilities that no human being is capable of.”

“Wha-” Kyon swallowed nervously, and began to seriously consider escape options. His back was to the door. He could probably just about make it before whatever telekinetic ability she had pinned him right back in place. Maybe. Or maybe it would just piss her off. “What are you?”

“In your terms? An alien from outer space,” she said. Matter of factly, like it was no big deal. After all, humanity had only been looking to the stars and wondering if they were alone in the big wide universe for as long as the species was capable of such musings so why would it be a big deal for it to turn out aliens had long since adopted human form and begun to live among human society. So, not only was his life a porn parody but also a horror plot too. Right now he was hoping the genre sort of stayed with the previous one, as at least that way he stood a chance of being sexed to death by a gorgeous alien rather than having his skin sliced off. Guy has to have his preferences and all that.

“In more specific terms that you may understand, I am a Living Humanoid Interface constructed by the Integrated Sentient Data Entity. There are a few of us on this planet, and we’re here for the purpose of analysing Haruhi Suzumiya. We have been doing so for, oh, about three years now. Nothing unusual was detected during that time… Up until right about now. When she encountered a boy that spontaneously generated abilities similar but distinct to her own.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out she meant him. “What abilities?” he said. “You mean those visions? Is that it?”

“Part of it,” Asakura admitted, sipping at her tea. “I’m afraid it’s all quite complicated by your standards. Oh dear. Your human languages are quite terrible for conveying data accurately and concisely. Where to begin, where to begin…

“The Integrated Sentient Data Entity doesn’t exist in a physical form as you would understand it. As the name states, the ISDE is a data entity that exists as data. Since data entities evolve by the act of collecting data instead of reproduction and natural selection, we have felt that analysis of organic life forms may help us develop our own evolution even further.

“This is the important part, Kyon, so please pay attention! Three years ago there was a burst of data all around Haruhi Suzumiya that immediately caught our attention. We started watching her, and realised that there were frequent smaller bursts coming from her as well, and that she is completely unaware of it. Unfortunately we’ve also discovered that if she realises the truth about herself the end consequences would be terrible.”

Kyon sat staring at her in silence. This whole story sounded completely ludicrous, and yet he’d seen so many ludicrous things recently. A whole school succumbing to a memetic effect. Including the girl in front of him, still wearing that tiger-print uniform like it was nothing to worry about!

“Alright,” he said. “So you’re an alien. What do you want with me? It’s not like telling Haruhi’s boyfriend is a good way to keep this sort of thing secret from her, is it?”

“I suppose not,” Asakura said. “I wonder what would happen exactly if she did find out, but that’s not why you’re here. You are here because recently I was reassigned to analyse another human, after someone else close to Haruhi Suzumiya began releasing and altering large amounts of data and then began to date Haruhi Suzumiya.”

Well now, this part of the story didn’t make sense at all. If he was indeed releasing large amounts of data just like Haruhi was, wouldn’t it also be a bad idea to tell him? Kyon didn’t think he was particularly smart or anything like that for noticing this obvious problem, but it did make him more willing to take the rest of what she was saying with a pinch of salt. Some sort of elaborate practical joke by his class? No. Asakura didn’t seem the type for that. Besides which, that trick with the tray couldn’t have been done with wires no matter what anyone said.

“We believe you do not have even unconscious control over your data manipulation,” Asakura said. “That is the difference between yourself and Suzumiya. Therefore it is safe to tell you. What is more, we have reason to believe the data manipulation has a direct effect upon humanoid sexuality, up to and including influencing a living humanoid interface. Don’t you find it strange that nobody can remember your name? And, of course, there are these uniforms.”

So this is what it was after all? He was the root cause of all of this… It somehow explained quite a lot, but there was still a part of Kyon that could barely believe any of this was happening. So many questions still dancing around in his mind! “What’s causing this?” he demanded. “Is it that cube I found?”

“Cube?” Asakura said. “I’m quite afraid we don’t know anything about a cube. All we know is that there was a sudden data explosion from you shortly after Haruhi’s introduction in class. We initially thought she might have caused it herself, but there are several competing theories over the causation. That is why we called you here today. We were hoping you could help us determine the cause, but I suppose you are as unaware of it as Haruhi Suzumiya. How unfortunate. We were rather hoping you could provide fresh data on either mystery, and then we could have helped you control it.”

Control it. My, what a tempting offer that was. No more random alterations, no more mysterious glowing, now more people forgetting his name as soon as he said it. Why not let them analyse him, in that case?

“Once we’ve dealt with that problem, we can deal with the reason we orignally came here in the first place. Haruhi Suzumiya.” Asakura sighed into her tea, a distinctly human reaction that on closer inspection now felt slightly off to Kyon, somehow. “It’s a shame, really. She’ll probably dump you as soon as this whole thing is resolved. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if the only reason Haruhi Suzumiya was interested in you at all was because of your data manipulation ability.”

It felt just like someone had stabbed him right through the chest with that remark. Ridiculous. The very idea that Haruhi was only interested in him because he -

<i>“I’m not interested in normal people.”</i>

“Shut up,” he said, suddenly rising from the table. “It isn’t like that!”

“Oh dear. I do hope I did not touch a sore spot,” Asakura said, making absolutely no move to stop him. “Perhaps you had been wondering all this time what it was she saw in you, and you don’t particularly care for the truth?”

“What truth might that be? That she’d spread her legs for the first abnormal guy she meets? Haruhi isn’t like that!”

“I didn’t say she was,” Asakura said. “But it’s interesting, isn’t it? I thought you wanted to know more about what was wrong with you recently, and now that I’m offering you the chance you’re kicking and screaming. Oh well! When you are ready to confront the truth, come back and speak to me then. I will help you learn everything you need to know.”

Kyon didn’t turn around or say anything. He just went right out through the door, and went straight back home with thoughts of aliens and data and <b>bullshit</b> dancing around his head.

Meanwhile up in the apartment, Asakura was furiously masturbating. “Ooh! It’s a good thing Yuki took the time to analyse him earlier!” she moaned. “Otherwise, I’d have jumped him the moment he entered the apartment! And that just wouldn’t do.”

<hr>

Down by the school gates was a terrible clamour that would probably be the talk of the student body for weeks to come. Perhaps months. She called it a recruitment drive, but that’s probably not what everyone else would wind up calling it. Two bunnygirls, one carrying a sign while whimpering and the other energetically bouncing around while handing out flyers to all who passed by. A large amount of cleavage and back was revealed by these particular outfits, net stockings nicely wrapped around their legs and bunny ears bounced on top of their heads. All things considered both girls looked absolutely stunning.

Haruhi was skinny but had the right proportions; Asahina was small, but her figure was also perfect. To be honest, they really were a feast for the eyes! Which made it all the funnier that their current outfits were actually less revealing than the “uniforms” they had been wearing for a week and a half.

“Looks like a storm is brewing,” River observed, staring up at the ceiling rather than out the window. Next to her Yuki merely turned a page in the book she was reading. Such a peculiar pair. Excluded from this activity because they only had two costumes and as adorable as these two might well be there could be no doubt that Haruhi and Asahina filled them out the best.

It was so easy to imagine that girl doing something like this. Not caring a whit about the effect her body had on people. The only factor she seemed to care about was that it would draw attention and nothing more.

“You’re so right!” River giggled, tousling Yuki’s hair. “Nobody can see the back of their own head, so studying one’s own mind is impossible. That’s the trick.”

Kyon took a very tiny step away from the pair without realising he was even doing it. Most of the rest of his attention was focused rather elsewhere. On one hand, Asakura was an alien life form sent to study him and Haruhi. It seemed like some sort of fever dream, but stacked up against everything else he’d seen recently it was impossible to dismiss.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” River asked, forcing Yuki to look her in the eyes. “I mean, isn’t that kind of -” She stopped, tilted her head and pouted. “You’re no fun! What would be wrong with telling him?”

Telling him, huh? Was she talking about Kyon himself? The conversation apparently going on between the two of them was quite impenetrable to him, quite frankly and - Ah! Here was a teacher showing up and tossing his jacket over Asahina and dragging them inside, no doubt to shout at them for wearing costumes that revealed less skin than their uniforms did. Seriously, he might never get over that. Ten minutes later the two would-be advertisers entered the room, first Asahina, whose eyes were appropriately enough about as red as a bunny’s. Kyon hurriedly gave her a chair, into which she virtually collapsed. Kyon honestly felt rather sorry for her. Perhaps he should have tried a little harder to persuade his girlfriend to be a bit more reasonable. But then again, look who he was dealing with. Persuading her of anything reasonable was not something an ordinary human being could accomplish.

<i>“I’m not interested in -”</i>

The door burst open and Haruhi stormed inside in the foulest mood he’d ever seen her. Kyon wasted no time in offering her a chair as well, but Haruhi waved him aside and angrily stomped around the room. “Damn those teachers!” she said. “Damn them! What the hell, those damn teachers! They always get in the way!”

Kyon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, of course they’d interfere,” he said. “Two girls passing out flyers while dressed as bunnygirls. It would be abnormal if they didn’t, right?”

Haruhi merely rolled her eyes, and it struck home that she really didn’t have any consideration at all for the way her sexy… Sexy… Body… Had... Kyon’s head slowly tilted as his attention was completely captured by Haruhi slowly (if angrily) peeling off her bunnygirl costume, uncaring at the fact he was even in the room. He knew by now what every little part of her felt like, but her beauty was no less stunning or capturing. Or distracting.

The only reason Kyon was even out of the room a minute later was that Asahina had pushed him out, blushing the entire time. Leaving him alone with his thoughts for a few minutes while the girls got changed. They filed out one by one, first the still-sobbing Asahina. Then River. Then Yuki. Leaving just Haruhi in the room. Which was fine by him. He needed to talk to her about this, get it out there and find out the truth. She was still a little irate when he walked in but at least now she was sitting down. He massaged her shoulders which were still bare because the uniform really did show off a whole lot more skin than that already scandalous bunnygirl outfit and she seemed to just sort of melt in place.

“How am I supposed to advertise the club if they won’t let us do something like this?” Haruhi sighed. “This whole thing pisses me off! I just - Ugh…”

The grunt she made was simultaneously aroused and irritated, a peculiar combination to say the very least. Perhaps now was not the best time for the question to be asked, but if not then… When?

“So, why are you going out with a guy like me anyway?” he asked. “I mean, you dumped all those other boys. Why still go out with me?”

“Those other boys? Don’t get me started on them! They were so boring, so normal. Nothing special about them at all.”

Kyon very visibly winced. Not that Haruhi could see him, of course. Was that really all there was to it? Some freak chance had given him powers over which he had absolutely no control, so she decides to jump into bed with him at the first opportunity? That just didn’t seem right to him somehow. Worse yet was the possibility that he had somehow changed her so that she would find him appealing, or perhaps the other way around was the case? Kyon grit his teeth. This relationship could be a lie any of those three ways! A fantasy enacted and maintained by either one of them, then lost at a whim. And though her soft skin and sexy, nearly naked body did make it extremely difficult and painful to do, he reluctantly stepped away from his girlfriend and walked towards the door. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” he said. “I’ve just got a little bit of thinking to do.”

The door closed, and after a moment Haruhi blinked several times as what had just happened caught up to her. Something in his tone had caught in her mind. Something that worried her. “Kyon?” she whispered, partly confused, partly aroused, partly sad. Though as for that last one, she couldn’t tell why.

<hr>

Here he was. Just like she’d known he would be. It was easy to manipulate him based on the data they had acquired about his actions, and he had behaved in a manner simple to manipulate. Unlike Haruhi Suzumiya. Her psychological profile seemed to twist and change on a moment’s whim, but comparatively this Kyon person was as easy to read as a book.

Not that Asakura spent a tremendous amount of time with them. That was Yuki’s cover rather than hers.

“My goodness, Kyon,” she said as the boy walked through the corridor. “An incident like that… If something like it happens again, I’m afraid I absolutely won’t be able to stay silent.”

“How long would this analysis thing take?” he said.

Asakura smiled at him. “Just a few moments. Please, we should continue this discussion in the classroom.”

He obliged so readily, the foolish boy. The price of knowledge was lost on one such as him. The data they would receive from this particular event would be beyond anything else they could do. Passive observation was no longer an option. They absolutely had to take action now. They absolutely had to, what was that human phrase? Strike while the iron was hot. Well. Obviously. How else would the iron be forged into a usable shape by their primitive tools? She smiled sweetly at Kyon, poor boy still oblivious to what was about to happen. There was absolutely no risk to her, of course. He had no control at all over his ability, and even if it did turn out that he could do something in response to mortal peril… Well, that was also invaluable data!

“So, what happens now?” he asked a mite impatiently.

“Now? Now I just need to examine your constituent atoms,” Asakura said. Kyon nodded as if he understood what she’d said. “Which will necessitate a series of dissections that will, I’m afraid to tell you, result in your body becoming little more than a fine red mist.”

In an instant, Asakura slashed her right hand and to his point of view it must have looked like a white metallic flash went past where his neck used to be. Rather an undignified manner to fall over, landing on his rear end. Such a shame. But he was trapped. Perhaps more so than he realised as he crawled backwards towards the door.

“It’s no use,” she said. “There really is no escape. Please, it is quite futile to resist. I control this area.”

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kyon yelled, reaching up for the door and finding that it simply wasn’t there anymore. Right about now he was probably realising the windows were also gone. “If you kill me, then Haruhi -”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Asakura said. “Haruhi will what, exactly? Leaving things as they are now is far too slow, don’t you think? We’ll get so much more data if we kill you and examine your corpse than we could ever get by leaving things be. Between analysing you and Haruhi Suzumiya’s reaction, we shall unearth a wealth of data!”

With that said she ran forward with her knife aimed right for his heart. Faster than any human could hope to move, faster than he could dodge with even a lucky stumble or clumsy attempt to dive out of the way. It was best to eradicate him quickly. Cleanly. Not out of mercy or anything like that. Organic life didn’t mean anything to her or her faction. All that mattered was being as scientific with her analysis as possible, which meant butchering his body would not get her anything useful at all.

Except that the blade was stopped by a presence that surely surprised Asakura around half as much as it did Kyon, even if for different reasons.

Catching the blade in her bare hands was Yuki Nagato.

“Your programs are too basic,” Nagato said in her usual expressionless tone. Honestly, she was far too poorly designed for basic human interaction. “The data lockdown around the ceiling area was incomplete. That is why I was able to discover it and enter.”

“You want to get in my way?” Asakura replied. “Once I kill this person, Haruhi Suzumiya is bound to have some sort of reaction. Only then can we obtain more data. I would think that would be to your benefit!”

“The other factions disagree,” Yuki said. “I have now received full authority to disconnect your data interface.”

Why, that little - Grown a spine, have we, all of a sudden? Fine then! So be it!

“Would you like to try? I have the advantage here, since this classroom belongs to the scope of

my data control.”

“Processing application for data interface disconnection.”

Just let her try it. Asakura was ready for anything she could throw. Her adversary began to glow, clearly preparing some form of data manipulation that would ultimately prove futile. This entire space was completely under her jurisdiction, which meant that it would be easy for her to dispose of both of them, and - Asakura suddenly began to fidget. W-wait a minute! How - How was this possible?! After all of their analysis of his… his pheromonal ability to influence even humanoid interfaces and all of their attempts, why was she still -

Yuki pounced on her, and Asakura felt her willpower erode like snow in a tanning booth. Yuki’s little fingers easily snaking underneath her bikini to reach areas that should absolutely not have this kind of reaction to such stimulus! H-How was this even possible?!

<hr>

The door rematerialised to his right, and Kyon damn near dove out of it while the girls rolled around on the floor. Looking back, he watched it vanish again and he was left in a corridor realising he was probably the only man in history who ran in terror at the sight of two hot girls making out on the floor.

Neither of them were human. Absolutely not human at all. The way that Yuki had glowed for a moment when she reached back to touch Kyon’s hand, that surge of energy he had felt passing between the two of them for a moment there. Incredible!

“Kyon-kun!” a voice called, immediately drawing his attention towards the hypnotic sight of Mikuru running directly towards him. “Please, you have to hurry. It’s River! She started acting so strangely!”

Strangely? That girl? Kyon’s imagination did rather respond to the thought with a small sarcastic retort about how anyone could possibly tell, but he also remembered Simon’s warning far too well. “Where is she now?”

“The clubroom,” Mikuru said. “K-Kyon! What should we do?”

“Find her brother, he should be in the infirmary. I’ll-”

The clubroom. With Haruhi? Somehow that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. That girl might even encourage this strange behaviour! Kyon ran for the clubroom faster than he thought he could even move, thoughts of his own near-death experience momentarily forgotten. It never rains but it pours, huh? Kyon threw the door open and boggled at the mess. Books cast carelessly to the floor. Chairs arranged on top of the table. Haruhi cradling River in her arms and gently rocking her back and forth.

“Who is coming?” Haruhi asked, gentler than he’d ever seen her. “River… You’re safe here, right?”

“No! Never safe! They’re coming! Nothing can stop them! Not even the giants of light. Nothing! They’ll come and they’ll tear it down and rebuild it just to destroy it again and again and they just won’t stop!”

Kyon knelt down next to the pair of them and found himself speechless. Utterly speechless. It occurred to him that Haruhi wasn’t just trying to comfort River, but also keep her contained. To his utter surprise she was barely able to do that at all. In fact, the only reason she seemed to be having any success was the simple fact of River beginning to cry and hug Haruhi back.

Was that fear in Haruhi’s eyes? Concern? Affection? Sometimes she was so hard to read. Then again he wasn’t exactly able to read River’s reaction in the slightest. Giants of light? What was she talking about?

Mercifully it did not take long before Simon showed up. Kyon hurriedly shuffled to the side, barely hearing a word he whispered, but definitely seeing her accept some sort of medicine that sent the poor girl to sleep with a smile on her face. Asahina trailed into the room wringing her hands nervously, and behind her Yuki stepped into the doorway. Without her glasses. It suited her better like that.

“She should be stable now,” Simon said.

“Stable. Sure,” Haruhi said. She reached out and yanked Simon by the collar, pulling him down to eye level with her. “So! Mind telling me what that was all about? And don’t go telling me it’s none of my business! She’s a member of my SOS Brigade! That makes it my damn business!”

Simon looked around at all of us, very deliberately making eye contact with each in turn. Poor guy really had no idea what sort of crowd his sister was falling into, but perhaps now he was starting to understand. Come to it… So was Kyon himself.

The story he told was completely unbelievable. To summarise: They really were Britannian citizens, and they really were on the run. River was a child prodigy, taken and experimented upon until Simon found out and busted her out. All the while, Kyon kept glancing over at Haruhi, who was simply staring at Simon without moving an inch. Arms folded over her chest and staring at him with enough fury to melt steel. She didn’t say a word until he had finished, and the very first thing out of her mouth was simply this:

“As a member of the SOS Brigade, River Tam has the greatest protection this world can ever know! If they want to take her away, they’ll have to go through all of us as well!”

“Um…” Asahina reluctantly said. “M-Maybe it would be be-better if Simon took River to rest in a more comfortable place? He - He should probably focus more on making sure she’s better again, right?”

“Miss Asahina is quite correct,” Simon said, leaning down to scoop his sister up. “I need to make an attempt at discovering the reason behind this latest outburst. Please, for her sake, don’t tell anyone about this. I just want her to have a chance at a normal life.”

“Alright then! Yuki! Kyon! I want you two cleaning this place while Mikuru and I assist Simon and River. Got it?”

No problem there, as far as Kyon was concerned. Yuki was already dutifully picking up the books and carefully organising them back in their proper places. Kyon decided to let her get on with that while he got the chairs back in place. This did also provide the perfect opportunity for him to talk with Yuki about what just happened. Where to begin?

“So, you’re an alien as well,” he said.

“Yes,” Yuki replied. “I am a Living Humanoid Interface.”

The same phrase Asakura had used to describe herself. Not lost on Kyon by any stretch.

“What happened in there just now?” he asked. “In the classroom with Asakura. Why did she try to kill me, while you saved me?”

“She and I belong to different factions,” Yuki said. “Hers believed that prompting a response and discovering data was the most efficient use of our time. Ours believe this approach could be calamitous. To Earth. To ourselves. She attempted to kill you by trapping you within a space controlled by herself and would have succeeded if not for my intervention. Post-battle analysis indicates I would have been victorious in a straight confrontation, but the likelihood of success rose exponentially thanks to your assistance.”

“My assistance?” Kyon asked, suddenly a little stunned by how much she was talking. She had probably said more words just now than he’d heard from her since they had met!

“Yes,” Yuki said. “A part of your uncontrolled data manipulation ability permits increased sexual pheromone output. The effect increases dependent upon how deviant a humanoid female is from a normal human being. That is to say: The sort of people Haruhi Suzumiya has declared she is looking for rather than merely different in terms of personality or appearance. Although Asakura had altered her own data to try and prohibit the effect, I momentarily tapped into your ability to maximise the effect upon her. This provided the necessary opportunity to penetrate her defences and seize control over the space. Once she realised the employed stratagem, she attempted to adapt as appropriate. She was erased.”

“Erased, huh? What does that mean exactly?”

“The humanoid interface has been reintegrated. I will be taking over all duties regarding analysis of yourself and Haruhi Suzumiya.”

Kyon took the time to roll it all around in his mind. It was quite a lot to take in. Such a busy day it had turned out to be! But one point did stick out. “So she really is only interested in me because of this cube thing. That’s a shame,” he sighed.

“Negative,” Yuki slid the last book into place and turned around to face him. “Although analysis indicates your altered state sparked her initial interest, we believe there is further motivation behind Haruhi Suzumiya’s infatuation. Asakura’s words were deception designed to provoke a particular set of emotional responses in an attempt to manipulate you into releasing more data. Nothing more.”

Kyon couldn’t even ask another question before Haruhi returned to the room with all the subtlety of a meteor strike. No sign of Asahina anywhere, which was a little worrying until Haruhi simply said, “Brigade dismissed! Yuki, you can go home if you like.”

“Understood,” Yuki replied, silently strolling out of the room even as Haruhi took a chair. The instant the door closed Haruhi slumped forward with a satisfied grin upon her face.

“To think we’d meet another interesting person so quickly,” Haruhi said.

“Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it? Here you are, trying so hard to be anything but ordinary when it’s all that girl and her brother want. I guess the grass always is greener on the other side after all.”

“Britannia,” Haruhi said, mostly to herself. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How they keep coming up? Your visions, River. Doesn’t that seem a little peculiar somehow?”

“You think there’s a connection?”

“I know there is!” Haruhi leaped to her feet with a very distinctive grin about her. “Don’t you get it? They’re the bad guys, and we’re the plucky underdogs that are going to topple the empire! Oh! They don’t stand a chance!”

“… You are talking about a group of high schoolers taking on an empire here. You realise that, don’t you?” Kyon asked. Haruhi pouted at him and it made Kyon’s knees feel like they’d been replaced by jelly.

“Big deal,” she said. The next thing Kyon knew, a bra had landed on his head. “We’ll sweat the details later. For now, though! You left me hot and bothered earlier on. I think it’s about time we got around to finishing what we started.”

Whatever complaints he might have had, whatever lingering doubts may have formed in his mind, Kyon knew on an instinctive level that resisting Haruhi when she was in the mood was a fool’s game.

<hr>

Since when was walking in a straight line such a difficult task? It honestly felt like that girl had outright drained him of about ten years of life, but even so it didn’t stop everything all around him from looking so damned beautiful. Though his thoughts did keep coming back to the same thing time and again… Was Haruhi really only interested in him because he was different in some ill-defined way? Was there something else to it? Did it really matter so long as the two of them enjoyed one another’s company?

Was it that he enjoyed her company, enjoyed the sex, or just found things so much more interesting that she was around?

Yuki’s words echoed in his ears. It was strange. She had been so flat and emotionless compared to Asakura, and yet… He still couldn’t shake the idea that Yuki was the one being honest with him. Maybe it was because one of the aliens had tried to kill him while the other had saved him. Who knows? Who cares?

And as for the way that Britannia kept on popping up lately, that last vision with Haruhi had been a little worrying. It almost made it seem as though Japan would be attacked -

The night’s sky lit up as though it was noon, and a terrible thunder rolled across the air. Kyon swallowed nervously as the terrible sight of a swarm of helicopters filled the sky, and he knew now that those invasion plans he’d been witness to had been anything but bizarre imaginings. This was the moment Kyon learned that sometimes knowing is that much worse than not knowing.