Day 21

[from Haruhi: A Thousand Worlds]

Bringing Haruhi with her was a risk; Yuki knew this. Her mere presence, now that she was aware of the existence of the supernatural, could have untold repercussions for every universe they visited on their quest, and the more worlds they visited, the more her perception of reality would be altered. But there was no other choice. Yuki could wipe her memories of the whole incident, but until the beast was defeated, that would not work. For now, she had to be kept away from her own universe, to prevent her from completely destroying and rebuilding it. As for her warping other universes… Yuki's mission was to observe Suzumiya, to prevent her from learning about her powers, and to make sure she didn't alter her own world. Strictly speaking, altering other worlds was perfectly fine; and in any case, it was likely that any influence Haruhi might have over a universe would disappear the moment she left it.

As they walked through the swirling void, Haruhi looked around in wonderment at the innumerable portals surrounding them. "There's so many of them!" she exclaimed. "Are they all worlds like ours?"

"Not exactly," said Yuki. "They are all indeed parallel universes, but a significant proportion of them are highly divergent from our own universe."

Haruhi blinked, still not used to hearing Yuki speak so much, and so verbosely. "So… they're all parallel worlds? Wow, that's amazing! Are we gonna meet, like, parallel versions of ourselves?"

"No," said Yuki. "The potential ramifications of such a paradox might be disastrous. For that reason, we will be restricted solely to universes not inhabited by alternate versions of ourselves."

"And how many of those are there?" asked Haruhi.

"Potentially, an infinite number," said Yuki.

Haruhi's mind boggled at the possibilities. "Wow… so many worlds!" she gasped. "Where do we start? Which one do we visit first?"

Yuki closed her eyes and recited something far too fast for Haruhi to understand; it sounded like mere gibberish. Whatever it was she had uttered, however, seemed to have had some kind of effect, for within the next few moments a large number of the portals around them faded away into the nothingness. Looking around, the portals still stretched for as far as the eye could see, but they were significantly fewer and further between now. "What did you just do?" asked Haruhi.

"I filtered out any universes in which I could not detect any significant signs of superhuman activity," said Yuki, "as well as any universes inhabited by alternate versions of ourselves. The remaining universes are where we shall gather our allies from."

"A supernatural army!" exclaimed Haruhi excitedly. "That monster won't stand a chance! But there's still so many portals here! I can't decide which one should we go through first!"

Yuki suddenly stopped and pointed at a portal a short distance away. Haruhi almost expected her to say something, but it appeared she was back to silent mode.

"That one?" asked Haruhi as a prompt. Yuki nodded in reply. "Alright then," said Haruhi, "that one it is! Let's go!"

Unable to contain her excitement any longer, Haruhi ran towards the portal, seizing Yuki's hand and dragging her along with her. "Once more unto the breach!" she declared, and with that she dived head-first through the portal with a cry of enthusiasm, pulling Yuki through with her a moment later. Together, the two of the tumbled through the rip in space-time that the beast had created during its rampage, hurtling rapidly and irrevocably towards a whole new dimension. For Yuki Nagato, this was the beginning of the most important mission in the history of every universe in existence. For Haruhi Suzumiya, however, this was simply the beginning of the greatest adventure she would ever have.