[FFML] [SHnY][Dark] Downfall: Act II -- Revelation

[Michael Clark]

> Losing my self control cost me three people I had known as friends,
> once.  I wouldn't let it happen again.

Is it self control or self-control?
>
> "We're ready to begin," one of the suited men says, nodding to the man
> in the lab-coat.  He gives me a polite bow, which I return before
> stepping to the side, closer to Itsuki.  He gives me his usual smile
> and extends his hand the slightest bit.  I let mine brush against his,
> but don't take it -- not here and now, in front of everyone.
>
> The man in the coat gives orders over the PA system, and the
> technicians busily respond to his commands, results filtering in.
> "Systems stable," he reports to the suited figures, finally.  "We are
> prepared for collision."
>
> I smiled politely, feeling strangely certain that today, they won't
> need me at all.  I think Itsuki sensed that too, because he gave me
> the faintest shrug as if to say, 'Well, what can you do?'  So for the
> next several hours, we got to watch the control center for the
> collider run smoothly.  It was a rare opportunity, and I shouldn't
> want something to go wrong to justify my interference....

These three paragraphs mix present and past tense a bit.

> If a black hole formed, then I'd prevent anything from going wrong, or
> people from being hurt.  If the machinery broke, I could fix that ...
> though with time, they wouldn't really need me at all.  Other than
> that, I just watched.

I'm not so sure a black hole fromed by the LHC would be damaging in any
meaningful sense anyway, though I suppose since Haruhi is a catch-all
safety net here, it'd be meaningless to not bring up even a remote
possibility.  Nevertheless, I'd thought a small black hole would just
evaporate quickly until it couldn't even be called a black hole anymore.

> She called him 'brother', not 'Kyon'.  He confided in me once that
> he'd always wanted her to call him that again ... and it was only
> after I....

Maybe Brother instead of brother?

> "And that makes it right?!" she exclaimed, standing rigid, hands
> balled into fists at her sides.  Somewhere, down the street, one of
> Itsuki's men ... I sent him somewhere else -- a beach in Hokkaido
> several hours walk from any cell phone signal, or other people.  This
> was between myself and Nonoko.

I think this is a little fast; we're taken from describing Nonoko to
yanking one of Itsuki's men away in hardly two sentences.  How does she
know he's one of Itsuki's?  By how he dresses?  By an earpiece?
Meaningless details, perhaps, but I think it would serve to slow this
paragraph down a little bit and flow more naturally.
>
> His people always watched me when they could -- for my safety.  They,
> and maybe Koizumi, thought I was weak ... fragile.  Why else would one
> of them move towards us?  I didn't need them to protect me from a
> little girl, though.
>
This instance of calling him Koizumi seems to stick out.  It doesn't
stick out later, when she addresses him with her suspicions, but this
one feels off.

> "Your brother was planning to betray me.  He was working with aliens
> and enemy groups behind my back to get rid of me.  What I did ... the
> reason I can even live with myself at all ... is because it was
> subconscious on my part to defend myself.  It really _was_ self
> defense ... but at the same time ... if I understood my powers better,
> he wouldn't have had to--"

Self-defense.

> "Suzumiya-san," she said suddenly, looking to one side, casting about
> as though searching for me.  "I can't actually perceive you, but I
> have prior knowledge that you are here.  If you follow me, there's a
> place where we can speak safely without damaging the time-plane, since
> neither of us are truly a part of it, right now."  Then she turned and
> moved down the hall again.

Hilariously, I was planning something just like this.  Argh.  I guess
it's not the first time, not the last either.

> "Suzumiya-san ... would Kyon kissing someone else truly do such a
> thing?  I ... realize that this was wrong of me because it must have
> hurt you, and nothing can change that -- but don't blame him.  My
> younger self only thought it was a chance to try and make him feel
> happier, and to confess...."
>
> "It did," she sobbed, the last of her denial torn away like a fresh
> scab -- exposing the unhealed wound beneath.  It was petty and
> pathetic ... how had she....  Why did she believe....

I'm not sure if I missed something in these two paragraphs, but it's not
clear to me what happened or what Mikuru is trying to say.  It seems
like Mikuru realizes that kissing Kyon helped incite Haruhi's anger, but
she seems to go from denying it to accepting it in too short a span.  It
feels like there should be another paragraph between these two that
leads to that effect.

> "I'm not your toy, Itsuki," she whispered coldly, as the warmth became
> uncomfortable heat, spearing in tendrils through his flesh and deeper
> into his body.  "After that ... what you made me do....  I'm going to
> do to myself whatever it is that I did to Kyon."

Nice call back.  The return to Sigh makes this one pay off very well.



I'd struggled for a bit to find something to say about the first
installment.  This second part brings things into focus enough for me to
have something coherent to say.  I like this idea of Haruhi trying to
make some amends for her crime and Koizumi using that to manipulate her
into being a benevolent god.  On the one hand, it feels fast--that
several years of Koizumi's subterfuge would come unglued in such a
short, concentrated span.  But it doesn't feel like it's unduly fast.

Beyond all that, I like how Haruhi's got it fixed in her mind that Kyon
betrayed her and that it takes a good deal of evidence to persuade her
otherwise.  It feels very appropriate that she'd cling to the idea of
being wronged, if only to take away some small part of her guilt, to
make the intent justified even if the full mangitude of her actions
wasn't.  This rationalization is, I dare say, utterly required to make
her character work here.

Looking foward to the final part.

-MC