The Horny Hypnotism of Haruhi Suzumiya (Hypno fic) (Patreon)

Heyo folks, hope all is well out there! The suggestion post is still up for anyone who wants to submit ideas for next month's bonus poll! We don't have many ideas on it at the moment, so it might be quite a small vote =D

This week's story is a commission asking for fetishy shenanigans of an older Haruhi Suzumiya and the SOS crew! It's been a while since I read the light novels/watched the anime, so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but the rather, ah, distinctive style of those books was a lot of fun to try working with! And as always with Haruhi, it turned out rather... peculiar. I hope you enjoy the read.

-

At one point in my life, I recall, I believed that my adventures with the SOS brigade were a temporary arrangement. Oh, I never really thought of them as such – it wasn’t as though I was anticipating their end or anything. It was just a thought in the back of my mind that eventually, one day, inevitably, our time would be up. We would graduate from high school, and all of us would go our separate ways. Koizumi, Asahina and Nagato would almost certainly end up following Haruhi wherever she ended up going (something I long ago gave up trying to predict) and I would be free to follow my own average path through life. Perhaps I would even look back on occasion, nostalgic and wearing rose coloured glasses, and I’d muse about how they were the best days of my life and convince myself that I missed the spontaneity, before griping about how things were always better in the past or something.

Naïve. How hopelessly naïve! Did I truly think that a beast with its fangs in me would let go so easily? I can say I have no one to blame but myself. I should have known better, even for a simple, absent, unexamined thought.

Graduation came and went, of course, and still the SOS brigade persisted – as if it would ever be bound by something as simple as a mere school. The only thing the brigade was ever limited by was the will of Haruhi Suzumiya – and her will was probably greater than that of Prometheus. Though I’ve no doubt that if Haruhi ever found herself bound to a rock to have her liver pecked out every day, she’d have escaped within a week, not waited around for an eternity for some ancient hero to free her. Rocks are quite boring, after all.

I admit, to this day I’m unsure of who was responsible for what. It could have been anyone, really. Koizumi’s group. The time travellers. The Data Overmind. Haruhi herself… Most probably, it was a mix of all of them and more. None of them are any good at working together (especially Haruhi…) but they’re pretty good at getting what they want by going around one another. Whatever the truth, I didn’t expect the first thing I saw when I set foot inside my new college to be Haruhi’s face.

She, naturally, didn’t look remotely surprised. “Of course my loyal brigade would follow me anywhere!” She said – and that was basically that.

Which isn’t to say that nothing has changed since those early days, of course. Like as not, all of us have grown older. As people are so fond of saying, our bodies and minds were all undergoing changes as we began the final metamorphosis into adults. It was the time in our lives when we were supposed to choose who and what we wanted to be, to determine the course of our future lives. Change was inevitable, even for the SOS brigade – no, especially for the SOS brigade. And some of those changes were…

“Hm. Still a girl. Damn.”

… awkward to deal with.

I was staring down under my sheets, having just woken up in my dorm room, and once again I had found an unfortunately large bust of which I was the irritated owner. A quick check between my legs revealed a tell-tale slit, and confirmed that my original manhood had not yet been returned to me. Even my voice as I spoke my annoyance revealed the truth – as a man, my voice had never been so soft, even if I was quite low for a girl.

This was the seventh day in a row that I had woken up like this, and I was growing rather concerned that it might be lasting a while yet. I mean no offense to women when I say that. I can't even say I mind being female all that much, in limited amounts at least. But I was once left this way for over a month - and it turns out that I had vastly underestimated how unpleasant periods are. I would owe my mother an apology for my past insensitivity, but that would have been difficult to properly explain so I didn't bother. Hopefully my future awareness will make up for it.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” Koizumi said when he saw me enter the club room, dressed in a blue jacket and a long black skirt – my wardrobe had not escaped my gender bending journey. “This is what happens when you take so long to make your feelings clear.”

Hmph. I wasn’t sure what annoyed me more, his comment or the fact that he’d stayed male this time. “It’s hardly my fault if she can’t decide what she is,” I muttered in reply, cursing how cute I sounded as soon as I heard my own words. “Even if I said anything, I doubt she would understand.”

The culprit behind my change, obviously, was Haruhi. Probably. Who knew how it was that she did it – the how didn’t feel all that important these days, when the what was what you had to deal with. In essence, Haruhi was experimenting – as one does in college.

It turns out that this can be a rather troublesome process when your name is Haruhi Suzumiya – but then, that’s true of everything. In this case, it seemed that Haruhi hadn’t been content to work out where she lay on the sexuality scale the normal way, by taking her time and feeling her way towards the truth. No, instead, she had decided that the human race’s wide spectrum of orientations was, in fact, a multiple choice selection that she could pick and choose from as she liked. And like a child at an all-you-can-eat buffet, she was trying everything. Which meant, whether we liked it or not, so was everyone around her.

I admit, it was a surprise the first time I woke up without a man’s pride and joy – though I had been warned that something was coming, that there was some nonsense about strange happenings in closed space. And my surprise had soon turned into bewilderment when no one but myself even noticed anything was wrong. My clothes had been replaced, my room had been refurnished, all traces of masculine energy removed and replaced with feminine – and no one saw anything wrong. Life went on as normal.

The party responsible could only have been one woman, of course, but I admit I was certainly relieved when I ran into Koizumi in the club room and found that he – or she, at the time – had also found her life gender inverted. And she looked just as smug as ever about it, too.

Then Haruhi had bounded in with Asahina and Nagato, and it was clear that all of the squad was spending time on the other side of the gender line that day…

And since then it’s been anyone’s guess which way I would wake up. It’s obviously not something that she – or he, when the mood takes him – has any control or awareness of, so there’s nothing to be done. As I said, it’s not really so bad except for certain times of the month…

“I’m sure Suzumiya will turn you back before you have to deal with that again,” Koizumi told me in what was probably supposed to be a comforting tone of voice. “She rarely sticks with a setup for long without good reason. Although I suppose…” He leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin. “It might be that she’s finally chosen how she would like to go forward. Of course if that’s the case then at least you won’t have to worry about waking up in a new gender again.”

“Because I’ll be stuck as a girl?” I asked, my eyebrow spiking with the fury of an enraged maiden. It was probably disgustingly cute.

“It could be worse,” he said, shrugging. “At least you’re attractive.”

That was true, although I’d rather he not say it. As a girl I was trim, perhaps even a little petite. I couldn’t say I had any major assets – I mean, next to Asahina I was flat as a board – but altogether I’d say I looked like a charming girl next door type. Which is an odd thing to think about yourself, but I try to be open minded. The ponytail really helped – my hair was longer as a girl, for whatever reason, and the style came to me naturally.

“At least I know for sure that’s not the case,” I said, returning to the obvious subject at hand. “She’s nowhere near settled. Isn’t she still working on her big project?”

“Ah, I suppose…” He nodded, accepting my point. After all, it was obvious. Haruhi was far too tied up in her experiments at the moment to leave things as they were. Because since her great sexual awakening had begun, there was one subject that had truly fascinated her. The weird, wide world of-

“Hypnosis!” The woman herself burst in, a scrambling Asahina following in her wake. “Today’s experimental subject will be hypnosis!”

- Sexual fetishes. Good grief.

“Hypnosis? You mean the process of placing someone into a thoughtless trance from which you can instruct the deepest levels of their subconscious?” Koizumi asked, sounding politely curious. “One of the more explicit forms of mind control, as I recall.”

“The exact same!” Haruhi slammed her hand on the table eagerly. In body, she had matured from a mere athletic high schooler into an amazing specimen of a young woman in bloom… But in mind it would be hard to say she had matured at all. “Of course, since we’re talking about the fetish version we’re not talking about all that safe meditation stuff! We’re talking about absolute mental domination!”

She was pointing dramatically, and I felt that the lack of dramatic lightning behind her was quite a let down, despite it being a clear sky outside. Haruhi had missed her calling as a mad scientist… Well, I hoped she had.

“This sounds like a worse idea than when we tried out bondage.” Although I had enjoyed having the opportunity to gag Haruhi.

“All paths must be investigated and explored!” Another table slam – that one mostly because Haruhi likes the sound. “Imagine if we find out mind control is real! We’ll have a solid lead on the elusive espers at last!”

I don’t think espers are the mind controlling type, honestly. And don’t just make excuses for yourself Haruhi – this is more about your hormones than it is about science.

“I’m not just making excuses!” She protested. Then she huffed. “Tch. That’s just the kind of scepticism I’ve come to expect from you, Kyonko.”

I really hate that nickname.

“Tough! Anyways, ignoring the wet blanket, today we’re going to find out if hypnosis is real! To do so, I’ve secured some scientific equipment…”

From her pockets she removed what seemed to be a yen coin on a string, an old cassette tape player loaded with a blank tape, and a pair of cheap looking glasses with spirals on the lenses. She then waved at the small collection as though she were revealing the crown jewels.

“As you can see, this should be simple enough. I searched high and low all morning for the very best in hypnotic equipment…” It looked like the cheapest junk imaginable – if she had paid actual money for this stuff she’d been scammed. “And now we can test it out!”

I had a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Test it out how?

“By trying to hypnotise each other, of course!” She stated it like it was the obvious step. “Second in command, you can be the impartial judge. You watch and observe whether there appears to be any real hypnotic effect!”

“By your command,” Koizumi nodded, the lucky bastard. If he was going to be the observer, then…

“As for the rest of you, line up! I’ll be trying to hypnotise each of you in turn!”

I shared a glance with a nervous looking Asahina, and an indifferent looking Nagato, who had been messing around with her computer at the back of the room up to this point. This sounded like a really bad idea. Haruhi did know that hypnosis wasn’t real, right?

“Of course I know that – but maybe that’s just what the mind controllers want us to think! Up, up! It’s time to find out!”

There was no stopping her – naturally, we all knew that by now, and honestly I was probably the only one with any real interest in doing so anyway. With a sigh, I stood and fell into line with Nagato and Asahina – with Nagato taking one end and me the other, leaving Asahina in the middle. Honestly, how bad could it be? Hypnosis didn’t work anyway.

“Boring boring boring. How boring must it be to be a wet blanked like you, huh Kyonko? Well you can just go last then. Hm. Here, Mikuru, put these on.”

She told me to go last and then started in the middle?!

“There’s no benefit to come from being predictable! Part of the legend of hypnosis is that you have to take people off balance to get it to be the most effective!”

“Umm…” Asahina looked at the cassette tape player she’d been handed like it was a live snake. “Wh-what do I do with this?”

Ah, of course. Even for someone from this time period, a cassette player might be tricky to untangle. For poor Asahina-san, the problem’s just that much worse.

“Oh Mikuru~ I could just eat you up~” She looks like she really means it, too. For a moment I’m worried that she might be going fully into girls, and that I might never return to being a guy ever again. But then Haruhi takes the headphones out of Asahina’s hands and plants them on her head. “Just stand still and listen!” She explains/orders, while switching the player to play.

Then she moves on – down the line, away from me, to an impassive Nagato. “Alright Yuki, for you, we’re going to try a classic! The old swinging hypno yen! Just watch the coin swing and let me know when you start to feel sleepy…”

Hm. As if such a thing could ever work on Nagato. Yep. Sorry Haruhi, out friendly club mega hacker is just staring at you now. Surely even you must feel self-conscious about this. You’re waving a coin on a sting like it’s a magical talisman. This is just embarrassing.

“Hmm. Anything?” She asked after a while, still swinging the coin back and fourth. I wasn’t sure Nagato had even blinked yet.

“No… Fatigue status remains at normal levels.” The alien bookworm shook her head, her voice soft.

“I see. That’s too bad.” Haruhi at least had the grace to look disappointed, before tossing the coin on a string over her shoulder. “Okay, so that one didn’t work. How are you doing Mikuru? … Mikuru?”

I blinked, and shifted my attention to the woman standing to my right. That was odd. Asahina was just standing there, staring blankly ahead, cassette player held tightly in her hand by her side. Her mouth was hanging open, and as I watched a small trickle of drool was making its way down her chin to drip onto the impressive chest below.

Uh oh.

“Oh ho ho ho~” Haruhi was never one to look away from her prize once it was within her grasp. “What do we have here? Did my little subliminal filled dronification tape work?!”

Dronifi- where the hell did you get this junk, Haruhi?

“Around.” She shrugged. But now I could see she was fighting a battle inside herself. One that presented real difficulty for her. Oh, she wasn’t resisting the urge to grope Asahina, she already had a hand on her chest and was squeezing to try to get a response – the fact that our normally very loud Asahina-san didn’t react at all was a bad sign there – but rather, she was grappling with her inner nature. You see, for all that Haruhi hunts the special, the supernatural, and the strange… She can’t help but be a sceptic, in and of herself. If she discovers something strange, she has to test it. To prove it. It’s that dilemma within her which makes it so easy for so many blatantly supernatural forces to hide beneath her nose, honestly.

Which, unfortunately, meant…

“Okay, so that’s a fifty fifty rate of success…” She said, nodding to herself and letting Asahina go. “So I guess it’s down to you to find out if hypnosis is really real or not.”

She was looking at me, and I was suddenly starkly aware that there was no way I could make it out of the club room door in time. Wait, maybe this is a bad idea…

“No no, it’s fine. Don’t worry, Kyonko, everyone knows you can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do while under hypnosis.” While she talked, she had gotten those cheap looking glasses out, and now she was sliding them on.

You were just saying earlier that this wasn’t about that kind of gentle therapeutic meditation! You’re after absolute control!

“Pipe down, wet blanket!” And she has the spiral spectacles on now. They looked… ridiculous. Honestly, I was just trying not to laugh. “And quit giggling! These are 100% authentic hypno-specs! According to the magazine-“ You got these out of a magazine?! “-anyone I look at with these on should fall into an irresistible hypnotic trance! How are you feeling, Kyonko?”

Kind of silly, now that you mention it. I can’t believe you almost had me worried. And now I’m just staring at a woman earnestly wearing a prop from a bad 60s Hollywood Z movie and expecting it to hypnotise me. What a joke.

Honestly, how can she even see me under there? Those black and white spirals are completely covering the lenses. Can she even see under those things? I peered at her, my eyes developing a slight squint. It was tricky to see through the spirals, but I thought I could just about make her out. Was she… Was she staring at me?

Hmph. Well if she wanted to have a staring contest, fine. All the better to prove I wasn’t ‘feeling very sleepy’ or whatever. I locked eyes with her – I think – and I stared right back at her with all of my grumpy girl might.

There’s a funny optical illusion that happens if you start to stare at a spiral for too long, actually. You start to see movement, or images that aren’t there. It’s part of your brain starting to recognise the pattern you’re seeing and extrapolating it in the area where your eyes aren’t focused. It’s a well known phenomenon, which is why I didn’t think too much of it when the spirals on Haruhi’s glasses began to turn. It was just an illusion, after all. I kept staring.

I kept staring as the glasses seemed to take on their own internal light, the white lines becoming brighter, the dark lines becoming darker.

I kept staring as the spirals began to spin faster and faster before my eyes, each turn causing more spinning illusions as my brain struggled to keep up with what I was seeing.

I kept staring as slowly, steadily, the sprials started to leak straight into my mind, sweeping up my thoughts and spinning them around and around, drawing them into the black and white tangle of an image that now dominated my entire vision.

I kept staring as slowly my head began to empty, and my jaw began to go slack.

I kept staring as the voice in my head went-

-

I woke up naked and more than a little dazed. The room felt hot – pleasantly so – and from the shiver of cold that ran over my skin I could tell I had been sweating. Had I been exercising? My head felt oddly fuzzy, as though I was still half asleep. But slowly, my memories started to return. I had been in the club room, and… Oh!

I had looked down. There, between my kneeling legs, was the familiar head of Mikaru Asahina. Judging by the state of her face, and the dampness around my… private area, it hadn’t exactly been exercise I had been engaged with. And judging by the blank look in her eyes, she as still under the effects of hypnosis. Huh. That was not what I had expected.

I was rather confused. No doubt I'd always been attracted to Mikuru, and her naked form was a pleasant sight to see. My currently female and naked body made sure there was no way I could hide my arousal. But still, I was quite sure that normally waking up with her tongue between my legs without my consent would get me very concerned about matters of consent and boundary violation.

"Yeah, but that would be boring and predictable, so I made sure to tell you not to care about all of that!"

Ah, of course, there could only ever be one culprit. She was sitting nearby, at the head of the club table, which I found myself kneeling beside. Koizumi and Nagato were seated as well, though neither looked entirely comfortable. Koizumi, for one, looked quite apologetic – while Nagato was shooting me a look that I had long learned meant ‘give the word and I’ll fix all of this’. Oh dear. If things had come together like I thought then I was annoyed despite the command in my head. I had thought Haruhi had grown out of these delusions of ownership. At the very least I hoped she'd come to respect the other members of this club as people!

"Tch, don't be like that. This is hypnosis, hypnosis! It's already a violation of people's ability to exercise their free will, so obviously once we start examining it in detail these kinds of things are going to happen. You should have known that from the start."

Well I couldn't deny that, though I wasn't going to say so out loud. That would only encourage her. Instead I could point out that if she was the one who wanted to examine these things then she should have been the one getting hypnotised!

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She folded her arms and huffed. “I can’t examine anything from a mindless trance! Clearly I had to be the hypnotist. And a good thing too - It turns out I’m really skilled at it!”

Unsteadily, I raised myself to my feet. It looked like my clothing had been scattered around the room rather haphazardly. Typical Haruhi. I wondered if the fact that I didn’t mind my nudity was also part of her command. It must have been, of course. Being in a situation like that would normally have been heart attack inducing.

Still, despite the fact that I didn’t mind, I wasn’t oblivious to the situation here. This was very dangerous. Haruhi was not the kind of person who could be trusted with actual mind control. At the very least, this wasn’t an experiment we could ever repeat. Poor Asahina – hopefully we’d be able to make her forget about all of this.

“Oh she’ll be fine.” Haruhi waved off my concerns. “Two things are now very clear. One – that in order to hypnotise someone, you have to take them off guard. That explains why it didn’t work on Yuki – she knew what was going on, while Mikaru was surprised, and Kyonko didn’t take me seriously.”

That… Well, okay, that might have been true…

“And two – you can’t make anyone do something under hypnosis that they don’t want to do already. Absolute control is a total myth!”

I don’t think I actually wanted to end up naked in the middle of the club room.

“Oh no?” She got up and walked over to me, learing over my body the entire time in a way that made me feel mysteriously warm. “I don’t know, Kyonko, I think you’ve been wanting to have fun with our cute little club mascot for a long while~”

Uh oh. Normally those would be very dangerous words coming from Haruhi. Her jealousy was literally a threat to the continued existence of reality. And yet… She didn’t seem all that jealous? Was that because she was in control of the situation? … Good Grief, had her control freak tendencies overwhelmed her competitiveness?

That might explain why Koizumi and Nagato hadn’t interfered yet, though. If that was the case then we were walking on very dangerous ground. And usually, in situations like this… They left handling Haruhi down to me. Great.

“I’m not hearing a no~” Haruhi leered, and I blushed. I was used to seeing her look that way at Mikaru – having that expression pointed at me made me feel disturbingly… drippy. “So, obviously, the bounds of what someone wants can be pretty big!”

True. Hm.

“Ohhh, already my brain is alight with genius!” She spun around, turning her back to me. “Imagine what we can accomplish now! Though we’ll have to be careful. In fact, I’ll bet there’s an entire conspiracy of mind controllers out there who are secretly controlling the world, and they won’t like us discovering their secret…”

Oh shit. No no no, Haruhi, don’t let your imagination run away with you. You’ll really create something bad if you do that! The world definitely doesn’t need a shadowy mind control illuminati in charge!

“What are you talking about?” She ignored me. “I’m just stating the obvious.”

Hm. Koizumi was smiling, but I could see he was strained. Nagato was still looking at me. But if I could avoid it… I hated depending on Nagato for everything. Could there be another way?

… Maybe. Actually, there could be. I reached out and snatched the hypno-specs from the table, sliding them onto my head. I’d have to act fast, but if I could take her by surprise, then maybe I could sort this out. It would only be fair, after all, right?

Unfortunately...

"Gyahahahahaha~" Haruhi's laughter was not altogether unlike Tsuruya's. "Ah, how very predictable. Of course the club's number one wet blanket tries to betray me at the earliest opportunity."

Again she calls me that? I take offense. I am not a wet blanket. I'm just the only member of the club with working sense, aside from maybe Nagato, who was sensible enough to just avoid this whole thing.

"You're entirely a wet blanket. Duh. Every time we try to have fun you have to come along and complain, even though you're enjoying yourself just as much as the rest of us. Ah, Kyonko, some things never change. That's why I knew that, eventually, despite your complaints, you would try to use the hypnoglasses for yourself!"

Well this isn't about me. You're clearly out of control, and this seems like the most reasonable way to stop you.

"Hm. Well I suppose I can see your logic, but it's flawed, obviously. Do you really think that you can hypnotise me so easily?" Haruhi grinned as she turned to face me and indicated herself. "There's no way a mind as strong as mine could ever be brought under - I'm essentially immune to all kinds of hypnosis!"

Well that doesn't seem very fair. I have a strong mind myself.

"Sure," she said easily with a shrug. "But I mean, there's a reason I call you a wet blanket, hmmm~?"

She was staring down between my legs, no doubt eyeing that aforementioned arousal. I swallowed and felt my cheeks turn hot. Could it really be that I was susceptible because I was turned on?

"Definitely." Once again, my club leader nodded with certainty about a matter she knew nothing about. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Society is far too intolerant, but sluts are people too!"

Did you just call me a slut? I'm not sure I can forgive that.

"See? That's exactly what I mean. But surely a healthy sexual appetite is just that! Healthy! And yet we're expected to shame and mock anyone who show public interest in such things. Taboos are made to be broken, that is what I whole heartedly believe!"

I knew that was true - she did believe it. She wouldn't be Haruhi Suzumiya if she didn't believe such things. I was sure that, even in the hypothetical world where she did end up hypnotised, no one would ever be able to remove such a core conceit from the heart of that woman's soul. A philosopher once said, I think, therefore I am. Well, Haruhi rebels, thus she is Haruhi. If she wasn't herself, then she'd be someone else.

And yet, obviously I had to do something about all of this. Haruhi wasn't a bad girl, not really, but she had a knack for taking something and running with it - to abuse the sports metaphor, she wouldn't be satisfied by a touchdown. She'd run through the enemy goal, out through the stands, into the street, and score some kind of super goal of her own devising, given half the chance. In this case, that couldn't be allowed.

Surely Nagato or Koizumi would step in if things got really, truly out of hand, but ultimately I was the one that Haruhi trusted to keep her in line. Thus, I had to be the one to reign her in. That seemed pretty simple this time.

"Oh? You think you can stop me?" Haruhi was still grinning. "All I need to do is utter a single word and you'll drop back into a trance for me! [  ]!"

My eyes fluttered, and my head spun. It was like watching a movie on an old projector skip a few frames. Suddenly Haruhi had drawn a step closer, and I could taste her lipstick on my lips. "What did you just do?" I asked, reaching up to touch them.

"I used your trigger, duh." She stated it like it was entirely obvious. "And then I kissed you because you were cute like that."

Hm. I was sure I would mind that under normal circumstances, but right then I was quite happy with it. "And then you woke me up?"

"Of course." She said it as the most natural thing in the world. "I've proved my point. If I wanted to stop you I could pluck the idea right from your head and make you into my happy little slave girl right alongside Mikuru!" Uh oh. She'd just been saying it as an example, but now that it was out there I could see the idea starting to take root in her mind. "But a true leader accepts and defeats all challenges from their precious subordinates - and we should be scientific. If you think you know a way past my hypnotic invincibility, I will allow you to test it, just this once!"

How gracious of her. Very well. I would respond in kind and defeat her in one blow!

"Heh heh." If this were an anime I expect I might have seen an aura of some unspecific power gathering around her. "Come then, take me if you can!"

And so I did - I stepped forward and swept my ever-so-troublesome captain off of her feet, bent her at the waist, and leaned in, whispering the words, "I love you," to her just before planting the most soul searing kiss I could muster upon her lips.

I tried not to laugh at the undignified and somewhat terrified squeak I felt bubble up from her chest as my tongue explored her mouth. There were two rules to hypnosis. One, catch your target off guard… And two, that you can’t really make them do anything they didn’t want to do while in a trance. And as long as Haruhi believed those two rules to be true…

“Give in,” I told her, turning the glasses on and looking her dead in the eyes. “And I’ll kiss you on your other lips too.”

Her anime aura snuffed out like a candle in a vacuum. Her eyes turned blank and dull as her mouth hung slack. It was like someone had hit the lightswitch on her brain.

So much for her hypnotic invincibility.

But she really was cute like this.

I considered for a moment that I had something possibly akin to the power of god at my disposal to do anything with, and that it was currently drooling on my bare feet. But I didn't really have anything I wanted, so I just tidied away her memories of the whole thing and told her to move on from hypnotism. I've learned over the years that trying to push your luck with Haruhi always leads to disaster in the end.

Honestly, Koizumi probably would have stopped me if I’d really tried to take advantage. He did insist that I keep my promise to Haruhi before I woke her up, after all. Though, like before, I didn’t really mind. Was that Haruhi, or was that me? Fortunately tidying up wasn’t too difficult – finding my clothes, erasing Asahina’s memories, pretending the whole thing never happened… with Koizumi and Nagato helping out it was almost too easy. They’ve gotten disturbingly good at it over the years.

On the way home, though, he had something odd to say. "Sorry for not stepping in,” he started, which wasn’t all that odd, really. “I wasn’t expecting you to go under so suddenly. I don’t think she was, either. And once she’d gotten started, there was a real risk of closed space if I intervened directly.”

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. It’s okay, I wasn’t really bothered – though if that was because of Haruhi or just my own maturity I couldn’t say.

“Ah yes, I can see how that would be.” He nodded. “It’s funny though, if you think about it. This whole exercise was unlike her, in a way. I had thought that our great leader had grown out of treating the brigade members like playthings."

Yes, so had I. But, well, sometimes Haruhi will be Haruhi.

"Maybe so. But have you thought about it from the other direction? Perhaps this isn't something she is doing for herself."

Then who would she be doing it for?

"Us, of course." Koizumi shrugs off such a ridiculous statement like it was nothing. "Suzumiya isn't the only one being drawn through the ravages of early adult life. Perhaps this is her way of allowing not just herself to experiment, but all of us as well."

I could experiment better if I wasn't a girl half the time, I think.

"Do you really think so? I wonder. But even if that is the case, I don't think she means any real harm. To her, this is probably healthy for all of us. I suspect she thinks, in her subconscious, that on some level we enjoy it."

Ha! This man has a career as a comedian lined up in front of him, make no mistake.

"Hm, sorry, I don't think of myself as a very funny person. But perhaps you're right. It's only speculation, after all."

Psh. Ridiculous. Exactly why would I enjoy any of this? Sure, it's kind of fun, and I'm getting a ton of new experiences that no one else could ever have, but...

...

I'm going to stop thinking about this now before I discover things about myself that I'm not quite ready for. That's probably for the best.

...

… I wonder if Haruhi's heard of bimbofication...