Chapter 20 - Arkham's Revival

Arkham's Revival
The two swung side from side, Naluri's grappling hook keeping hold of the cliff top. Naluri had her arm tightly wrapped round Haruki's waist, which didn't matter as Haruki had his arm even more securely wrapped round her shoulders. "Haruki, let go," stated Naluri.

"What? Why?" protested Haruki. He looked down to see he was swinging a foot above a flat rock at the base of the cliff. "Oh." He let go, his feet landing on the rock.

Naluri followed suit, her belt retracting the grappling hook. She looked out away from the cliff at a very close island in front of her, barely two hundred metres away. "Arkham Asylum. That's definitely where the path of the transmission leads. You can even see the drop pod."

Haruki followed her gaze. There was a small wooden harbour with no boats. Beyond it was a cylindrical object coloured metallic grey and decorated with a gold colouring, contrasting heavily with the dark grey stone buildings around it. "Isn't that a Batman place?"

"Yeah. You know it?" Naluri resummoned the hoverboard and stood on it.

"Only by name," answered Haruki as Naluri pulled him back onto the board, "You?"

"I've only played the game," responded Naluri, the board shooting over the rest of the craggy rocks to hover over the water towards the dock. "As far as I can see, the layout seems to be similar." As they approached the island, Naluri noticed that none of the island's lights were operating, all the light being supplied by lights attached to the drop pod. She took a quick glance at the dark and opaque water below. In the game, the batmobile had sunk into the waters here. The area also seemed to be abandoned. The board hopped onto land and the two disembarked. Naluri slowly walked up to the drop pod, the lights inside also functioning. Looking through the window of the side door, she paused when she saw what was inside.

Haruki looked through the same window and froze, "... Who is that?"

"Haruhi," answered Naluri simply, pulling open the door, surprised it was unlocked. She knelt by Haruhi's body laid on the floor and checked for life signs. No pulse, no breathing, her body temperature had dropped to level of her surroundings, no pain response, no reaction to calling. Naluri's mind went wild with thought. If this was really Haruhi, she had been dead for a while though having thought that, Haruhi could easily reproduce the effects with her own power and could just be in hibernation. Though this might not even be Haruhi's body at all and just a creation by Sasaki. Sasaki was definitely capable of recreating a body to look exactly like Haruhi's though noticeably this body had a large black bruise on her forehead.

"... Is there any hope?" asked Haruki slowly. He looked frightened and eager to leave, essentially seeing a dead version of himself.

"I don't know," sighed Naluri, shaking her head. "We ought to concentrate on Reimu and Konata. My best guess is the penitentiary." She looked behind her at the building to the right of the dock, 'Penitentiary' on the sign above the entrance.

After closing the door to the pod, the two made their way to the double doors of the penitentiary. Naluri slowly opened one door, the inside being completely pitch black. She summoned a small handtorch and held it to the side of her temple to reduce the amount of darkness she personally could see. "Hold my hand," she whispered to Haruki who willingly obeyed. They walked in through the main corridor, passing unmanned secretary and security desks. "There's no power," commented Naluri. She noticed how dusty the area was, doubting that Gensokyo ever used the facility. Reminding herself about dust, she looked down to see a noticeable path taken through the dust on the floor. There was no indication of how many people had travelled through the path as it was one continuous trail, seemingly caused by someone with a long cape or gown that dragged across the floor. As they continued their way through the building with absolutely no resistance, Naluri was becoming increasingly aware of the time. A glance at her helmet monitor indicated that it was around the time the Anti-Nine had met up for the first time on the Thunder Child. If this was indeed the event going on at the moment, this meant the Sonic Barrier had been opened. Sasaki owned the entire universe. Something else came to mind. Sasaki with the Liquid Barrier was capable of flying with two people across the Atlantic almost instantly, certainly faster than the Thunder Child for sure. So why didn't Sasaki go ahead and fly straight to the garage? Come to think of it, she was very quiet during the trip. Was she planning something? She suddenly felt her hand being tugged, bringing her back to her senses. Naluri was running down the corridor, Haruki struggling to keep up hence pulling back on Naluri as a side effect. She slowed to a halt to examine the floor, allowing Haruki to regain his breath. The floor they were on was not the same as the stone surface before but this time it was transparent with wiring underneath, which Naluri recognised as an electric floor. They had reached a fork but the path in the dust spilt in two, one path heading through the doorway to the left, the other carrying on straight ahead. Naluri recalled that the door to the left led to holding cells while straight ahead led to the main security hub. She immediately took the left turn. The two walked past open cell after open cell until they reached the very last cell. Inside was-

"Konata!" whispered Naluri with urgency, kneeling by the cell door. Konata was tied up round the upper arms and the legs was face down on the floor, slightly curled up into a ball. "Let me get you out." Naluri was about to summon a lockpick but realised she had recently picked up a superior item.

"Don't..." groaned Konata, unmoving, "They'll be back..."

"Who?"

"Ganondorf... Palpatine... Alien Queen... They'll be back to check on me..."

"Where are they?"

"They should still be in the Green Mile..." Naluri recognised the Green Mile as the section of the building between the electrical room and the security hub. She sighed for making the correct choice of direction.

"Where's Reimu?"

"... The Green Mile..." Naluri bit her lip. The Green Mile had a single large cell with clear walls, normally reserved for Poison Ivy. She and Haruki had no chance against the three villains. "By the way," coughed Konata, "Is that you, Naluri?"

"Yeah. Are you okay? You don't sound too good."

"We were coming back from space but they gassed our drop pod. Reimu was knocked out but I managed to resist it and fought back. And here I am now. What are you doing here? Where's Sasaki?"

Naluri sighed as she thought of Sasaki's current position of supreme ruler. "I'll cut a long story short. I'm from the future. I came back to save Haruhi from the Death Note."

Konata choked, "The Death Note... That explains a lot... Who used it? And just you?"

"It's a long story but it was an innocent accident," immediately responded Naluri, defending Cirno and trying to avoid explaining the situation. "I came back..." Naluri paused, "... with Sasaki."

"So how do you plan to save Haruhi? She's already dead. If you need Reimu to remove Sasaki's barrier, you should wait until they leave..."

Naluri frowned in disbelief, "Wait. You didn't see us smash into your observation spacecraft in the DeLorean?"

It was Konata's turn to pause, "No?"

"But you were there. And Reimu. And Haruhi. We smashed through the glass with the DeLorean and then I used the Hand Canon on Haruhi. Reimu removed Sasaki's Barrier. And then Sasaki pushed me out the window." Naluri was explaining frantically with hectic hand movements even though Konata wasn't looking. Haruki was standing by her, incredibly lost, but did not question anything.

"... I heard Haruhi's body hit the floor, turned to see Reimu checking for her vitals to find out she was dead. ... What you're saying doesn't make sense... Why would Sasaki push you out the window?"

Naluri looked around in a confused frenzy. This was exactly what she saw behind Sasaki when she holding onto the edge of the observation deck. "This must be how Sasaki's making history repeat itself! By fooling your memories! She touched Haruhi before I shot Haruhi with the Hand Canon, gaining her knowledge. She could easily have used that to influence the universe to her liking."

"... I'm not convinced."

"I have proof! Look!" urged Naluri grabbing onto bars of the cell door.

Konata did nothing at first. She then began to slide her head across the floor to look out the cell, causing her great strain. Her face was covered in wet red blood and her right eye was black. She looked out to see Naluri. Upon spotting someone stood next to her, she shifted her eyes up. Amazement settled on her expression. "... Haruki?"

"You know me?" asked Haruki, clearly disturbed at the treatment of Konata.

"... Do you know me?

"No, I don't. Sorry..."

Konata smiled as she reset her head back to its original position, "Haruhi didn't either. Haruki, does Naluri's story make sense to you?"

This was in fact the first time Haruki heard the name of his female companion. "Well, it was a bit fast but it makes sense from my perspective. I did find myself flung out a window of a spaceship. And I did see the DeLorean fall towards Earth."

"... And your powers?"

"Powers?"

"Hasn't Naluri told you? You have omnipotent powers, Haruki. You can morph the world as you see fit. You can fix this disaster. You just don't know it yet."

Naluri retook control of the conversation before Haruki, with a confused expression, could respond, "What is the Hand Canon meant to do?" As Konata did not answer immediately, Naluri could tell what was on her mind. "I already know you were using me as a test subject for the Hand Canon. Ritsu told me."

"... It is meant to send a newcomer back to their original world," explained Konata. This much Naluri already knew from Ritsu. "But I see it did something else."

"What I think happened is that the Hand Canon actually worked and Haruhi was sent back to her world. But to fill the gap she left behind, an alternative canon version, in this case Haruki, was summoned. The body you saw and the one in the drop pod outside might be a fake planted by Sasaki."

"... I have no comment about Sasaki's intentions...," noted Konata, "I would like to have full confidence in Sasaki but my opinion is conflicted. To be honest, I would rather trust Sasaki than you yet... you are here and Sasaki is not... There are four people in the world that Sasaki cannot control at the moment. You, your past self, her past self and Haruki." Naluri noted that Konata did not know about Rokiahi. "I... I don't know what to think..."

"Ritsu said that you were monitoring my emotions but mentioned that it wasn't finished. What did she mean?"

"... We didn't manage to monitor all of your emotions."

"Like what?"

"... True fear. This is why we didn't want to tell you about the project. If we had told you, you would have no need to fear anything. Had you joined the North High Military, we could stage apparently dangerous situations that we could monitor. However, since we couldn't persuade you to join, we had to resort to declaring war on you... I'm sorry for trouble we've caused you..."

Naluri just bowed her head with sorrow, "We need to get to London to save Miku. I was hoping to use Reimu to help us get there but if she's in the same condition you're in..."

"... They won't hurt Reimu. They need her. However, they're likely to have high security or some backup plan if she escapes. Haruhi gave me the ability to fly but... I couldn't get you anywhere... They were talking about taking over Eientei. As far as I recall, Sakuya was also in the area."

Naluri bit her lip even harder. Judging from the surprised reaction of Ganondorf but unsurprised reaction of Doom back at the garage, Nitori appeared to be the only member of the Touhou cast, barring Cirno and Marisa, to have escaped their authority. However, waiting was far too risky. Sakuya could only stop and slow time but not reverse it. The small amount of confidence Naluri had was quickly shrinking. "No... We can't wait... We're going to check on Reimu. I'll leave you with this." Naluri slipped one of the tips of the Subtle Knife next to Konata's head so she could see it. "It can cut through anything, even the Hakurei Barrier. So don't drop it." After a moment of thought, Naluri summoned two more and placed them by the first one. Thanks to the SOS Thunder Children, she had plenty of Knife tips to give out. "Take care..." she ended, standing back up.

Konata smiled, out of view of the two of them, "I'm not doing that very well..."

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