1 ~ when did I stop believing in Santa Claus? [audio/action]

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[A teenage boy is extricating himself with some difficulty from having been dumped, or appearing, in the middle of the fountain in the center of the village. He's muttering to himself and clambering out. He's dressed in the generic-enough North High uniform, but of more interest may be what he's saying -- which is picked up by the split-open journal next to him.]

...Really, Haruhi? After all of that, I'm in some other time and place again?! Oh, boy. She really just doesn't stop... Where the hell is it this time?

[Once he gets up and brushes himself off, he can be found staring with slightly less bewilderment than you might expect at his surroundings.]

Comments

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[so_shik]

...damn it. [She just sighs, tapping her fingers on the countertop.]

...they're the ones who told her, I guess. The Malnosso. Inadvertently.

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'Disaster. Or is it? Now I'm just looking around waiting for the other shoe to drop. And by shoe I mean world. And by drop I mean explode.'

--They experimented on her and found out? And then... she found out?

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[so_shik]

Not quite. This all happened before I was here I guess, but somebody found a bunch of reports on all of the people here. A friend of ours translated the report for her and that's how she found out. Because she read the stupid report. [And she's starting to sound a little mad here, if only because she got to be on the receiving end of watching Haruhi have something of a mental breakdown right after that.] Because she read the stupid thing, who knows how often she wonders if she causes half of the things that happen here! But as far as I know...she's only made a chicken hatch from an unfertilized egg.

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As far as you know.

'But she could be responsible for just about anything. How would anyone know? Except Koizumi. Or Nagato. Okay, a lot of people could know, but not me or Shiki, probably.'

And... what did she do?

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[so_shik]

[And...bringing a giant squid here. And the Closed Spaces. And...well, she thinks she may have made herself switch bodies with someone but not entirely confirmed.]

Kept it. We're currently raising a rooster in our house.

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'That seems unusually docile and low-key for Haruhi.'

...Right. But you really think nothing else has happened because of that?

I have no idea how any of it works, but I wouldn't think she could be kept here if she knew how to use those powers.

'Of course, I wouldn't think that anything would be safe if she knew how.'

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[so_shik]

What, because of the rooster? No. Unless you mean...I mean it's pretty possible, yeah, but...she doesn't really know how to use her powers, that's the thing. A lot of the things that happen happen on accident if anything. Maybe that's what the difference is.

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'Either I'm not being clear, or Shiki has an unusual interest in the rooster. Probably both. Wait, probably just the former. I hope.'

...But there haven't been any Closed Space incidents?

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[so_shik]

...maybe...just one. Closed Space is like the gray area, right?

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Yeah. Like the operating system just froze or something.

['Only one? Either Koizumi's a drama queen or maybe something is suppressing them? Or she's that happy without us as long as she's in a different world? Useless to guess, I ... guess.'

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[so_shik]

Just once I think. The Malnosso might be stopping her...is it supposed to be more than that?

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[menial]

I've been told by someone who should know -- though maybe also someone with a vested interest in making himself seem cool -- that, particularly when she's upset, he has to be on duty 24/7 to take care of such things.

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[so_shik]

...and who would that someone be?

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The vice chief of the Brigade.

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[so_shik]

...Keiichi?

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Keiichi? No, his name is Koizumi.

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[so_shik]

...oh, you mean the Brigade there. [She thought that didn't make sense, but who knows with Keiichi.] Got it.

She only briefly told me about Koizumi.

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Ah. Well, he's an overly-handsome guy who won't stop smiling. And his job is to close the Closed Spaces.

['And should I be worried there's a new Vice Chief, too? It just further emphasizes that everything is different here.'

He looks a little more dismayed still.]

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[so_shik]

So wait, explain something to me. How exactly does somebody close the Closed Spaces?

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[He shrugs.]

It's not my area of expertise, but it apparently involves cutting the Shinjin to pieces with esper powers, after which the thing collapses in on itself.

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[so_shik]

...okay and the Shinjin is? Better yet, what exactly is an esper?

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The big giant glowing blue things with the freaky eyes. And an esper is, well, it's a little recursive.

['If that's what that word means.']

Apparently some people were endowed by Haruhi with the power to enter Closed Spaces and then use their weird cheating flying powers to kill them.

[He pauses. It's kind of weird for him to talk to an outsider about this.]

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[so_shik]

...oh. I mean...I wasn't in the Closed Space. A few others were, but not me. Does Haruhi actually know that she endowed these people, or was it another fluke?

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Part of the same fluke, apparently. A lot of stuff about what happened 'four years ago'.

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[so_shik]

Four years ago...I feel like that's more ominous than it should be.