Chapter 94: The Myriad Hua Mirror—Still Standing Strong?!

“Haruhi… are you okay?”

The sound of the activity room door closing snapped Asuka out of his daze; he suddenly remembered something and flinched inwardly, cautiously asking the club president, who had just been treated that way.

Perhaps it was the lighting, perhaps the angle… the next moment, he saw Ryouko Haruhi’s face before him—a dark, oppressive scowl.

Like an enraged lioness, an invisible pressure radiated from the usually energetic high school girl; her overflowing bad mood clung like living black tentacles, tightly gripping the collars of everyone still in the activity room.

Whether three years ago or in these past three months since meeting her, Asuka had never seen Haruhi like this… displeased, irritable, gloomy, furious, enraged, humiliated… and perhaps even a hint of surprise and delight?

Like an inconspicuous soldier suddenly brandishing sword and blade, launching a reckless challenge at the general.

“SOS Club members, our greatest challenge since formation, our unsolved mystery, has appeared.”

She felt no defeat, no doubt in her own beliefs—even if she were wrong, it could never be her fault; it must be Jia Ji’s fault for quitting the club!

How dare he act so rebelliously on his own initiative? Does he even recognize Ryouko Haruhi?!

“Members One, Two, Three, Four—deploy immediately! Go find him and bring him back! I want to see him before nightfall!”

Ryouko Haruhi is no weak woman; she has plenty of strength and methods.

But how do you find someone who has vanished from this world?

This is bound to be a waste of effort.

Until nearly midnight, they scoured the school, Guren’s workplace, Asuka’s home, every floor of Nagato’s apartment…

Every possible location had been searched—either diligently or half-heartedly—by SOS Club members; even every shop and passerby along Jia Ji’s daily commute route had been questioned.

Yet they found no trace of the member who quit—no clue at all—as if he had completely vanished from the world, evaporated without a trace.

“Dismissed!”

Stamping her foot in dissatisfaction, Haruhi declared today’s activities over, releasing the exhausted members back to their lives—her face puffed up like a pufferfish.

But from her stormy departure and heavy footsteps, a sharp, prickling aura lingered, leaving every member unwilling to provoke her now.

“Let’s wait until tomorrow.”

Guren sighed as he shook his head and headed home—he guessed he’d have to work overtime again.

“Nagato, why did Jia Ji come to Haruhi’s side in the first place?” Asuka, having already called home, didn’t rush back; instead, he chose to walk Nagato Yuki home and seized the chance to voice his doubt.

“Guren is here because of the ‘Agency’s’ orders, Misato-senpai was sent to North High due to temporal fractures, and you, Nagato, came to observe Haruhi and search for some kind of self-evolution potential…”

“But what about Jia Ji? As an outsider from another world, why did he come to Haruhi’s side?”

Asuka had originally assumed he, too, had accidentally crossed over from another world three years ago due to Haruhi’s power and was now unable to return.

But now it seemed otherwise—his unexpected behavior today proved he sought nothing from Ryouko Haruhi.

Yet the more he seemed indifferent, the more curious others became about his true purpose.

It couldn’t possibly be just to experience school life?

If anyone could answer this question, it could only be this alien classmate who had once lived with him.

The sailor-suited girl’s pale purple short hair looked lonely beneath the dim streetlamp; her expression unreadable, she merely shook her head and whispered, barely audible: “The transaction is complete.”

………

………

Meanwhile,

Across dimensions, far away at the Northern Dipper Qi Refining Dojo, Jia Ji lay unconscious, cradled in the arms of his senior, Duo Qi.

“Just now, did Jia Ji’s body suddenly flicker?”

Jia Ji’s unconscious form had flickered at a speed even the martial artist’s extraordinary dynamic vision could barely catch.

Had Ken Shi Lang not sensed an inexplicable aura emanating from Jia Ji just then, he might have thought it an illusion.

If one had to describe it, it was as if he had vanished from this world for an instant—snatched away by some force, then instantly returned.

“I saw it.”

Unnoticed, Rao had also appeared beside them; usually silent and sparing with words, he uttered only this single sentence, then continued watching in silence.

His gaze, however, remained fixed on his younger brother, who had just returned and fallen into this strange state. The man who normally only said “boring” or “waste of time” and walked away immediately now felt genuine curiosity—he wanted to understand what had happened to him.

He could even faintly sense two unimaginable, extraordinary forces pulling at Jia Ji’s body.

The Big Dipper hanging far in the northern sky, like the people below, began flickering uncontrollably.

But all these questions could only be answered once Jia Ji awoke.

………

July 8th, 7:30 a.m.

1-56 Sasoviel Eri 708, Kōyōen Nishiyama-chō.

“What the hell is that mohawk?!”

After this exclamation escaped his lips, Jia Ji, leaning against the huge floor-to-ceiling window as summer heat blasted his face, suddenly realized something was wrong—this phrase… he… had he… said it before?

He turned his head—not toward Asuka and Misato, who were still dazed from waking from their “hibernation”—but toward the equally shocked Kōko and the silent Nagato Yuki; the former had her mouth wide open, the latter gave him a slight nod, confirming his thoughts and memories were correct.

His heart dropped; sweat drenched his back. Jia Ji, having just been pulled back after returning home, now understood exactly what had happened.

At this moment, he opened the chat group panel—the previous garbled text was now legible: Nagato Yuki had written to him, “Cycle accelerated.”

“Cycle? Have I been caught in the [Mirror Flower, Water Moon]? Or is this the absolute-inescapable jutsu?”

No.

Something far more transcendent had activated—the entire world’s timeline had been forcibly rewound.

What is this?

One phrase—“I quit”—triggered Haruhi to reset the worldline.

Not world fusion, not true reincarnation—

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(End of Chapter)