Earlier that day, after Rin had retrieved the deceptively innocent letter from Ryoko in his locker, he had a chance encounter with Haruhi at the shoe lockers. It was a fleeting moment, but he seized it.
"Haruhi," he called out, "meet me later at the classroom."
She, as always, acted as if she hadn't heard him, her back already turned as she fiddled with her shoes. Rin, however, wasn't about to let her dismiss him. "Haruhi!" he shouted, a rare burst of volume from him.
She spun around, a retort already forming on her lips, but Rin cut her off. He looked at her with an expression of sincere urgency, a look she rarely saw from him. "This is very important," he said, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "Meet me at our classroom after school. When the school is completely empty."
Haruhi, her curiosity piqued by his unusual earnestness, decided to follow his instructions. She waited, hidden, until the last student had departed, until the school was utterly silent. As she approached the classroom, a loud, jarring noise echoed from within—a sound like something being violently destroyed. Her initial thought was not of danger, but of intrigue. Rin was in there, and if he was in trouble, she, as the leader of the SOS Brigade, would naturally have to intervene.
She burst through the door, only to see a familiar girl, Ryoko Asakura, slamming her metallic hand into the blackboard, leaving a deep, unnatural indentation. Fragments of the wall flew towards Haruhi, sharp shards of plaster and dust. She instinctively blocked them with her arm, stumbling backward, losing her footing, and falling to the floor with a thump.
Haruhi looked around, her eyes wide, taking in the scene: the damaged blackboard, Ryoko's strange, unyielding hand, and Rin standing calmly amidst the chaos. "Rin! What's going on here?!" she demanded, her voice a mix of confusion and burgeoning excitement.
Though Rin couldn't manipulate Haruhi's feelings, he could still read her thoughts. And in her mind, she was already constructing a narrative: This must be fake. It has to be. Ryoko's metallic hand, the damaged wall—it's all a trick. Rin must have called me here to watch some kind of elaborate act. She yearned for the supernatural, for aliens, espers, and time travelers, yet her common sense, her deep-seated realism, insisted that such things simply didn't exist. It was a funny contradiction, her fervent desire clashing with her ingrained skepticism.
Rin wouldn't allow her mind to settle on that comfortable, rational lie. He moved. In a blur of motion, he was in front of Ryoko, his fist connecting with her stomach with a sickening thud. Ryoko flew backward, a human projectile, smashing through the classroom wall with a deafening crash, leaving a ragged, gaping hole in her wake.
Haruhi's realist side shattered. The sound, the force, the undeniable hole in the wall right next to her—it couldn't be fake. She continued to tell herself it was an act, a trick of the light, but even as the words formed in her mind, her eyes betrayed her. The raw, undeniable evidence before her was impossible to deny.
A slow smile spread across Haruhi's face, the kind of smile a child wears when they've just witnessed something utterly, magnificently amusing. Rin looked at her, then back at the hole in the wall. He had often wondered, ever since he'd watched the series, what would happen if Haruhi truly, undeniably knew that the supernatural existed. And it seemed, he was about to find out.
"Supernatural things do exist, Haruhi," Rin stated, his voice calm, cutting through the ringing in her ears. "Aliens, espers, and time travelers—they all exist. In fact, you've already recruited all of them."
Haruhi's amusement-filled smile remained fixed on her face, but her words were still tinged with disbelief. "What are you talking about, Rin? Are you saying…?"
"Asahina is a time traveler," Rin continued, his gaze unwavering. "Itsuki Koizumi is an esper. And Yuki Nagato is an alien."
Her words still expressed doubt, but in her mind, the gears were turning, the skepticism rapidly eroding. He could feel her thoughts teetering on the brink of acceptance.
"Look at Ryoko," Rin instructed.
Haruhi's eyes snapped to the hole in the wall. Through the dust and debris, she could see Ryoko's form. There was a gaping, fist-sized hole in her stomach, a gruesome, impossible wound. But even as Haruhi stared, the flesh began to knit, the wound slowly, impossibly, closing. In a matter of seconds, Ryoko's stomach was completely whole again, as if it had never been damaged.
At that moment, Haruhi's smile transformed. It wasn't just amusement anymore; it was pure, unadulterated, wide-eyed wonder. Every single word Rin had spoken, every fantastical claim, she finally, truly believed.
However, the very next moment was something Rin hadn't anticipated.
Everything stopped.
Not just Ryoko, who remained still in the damaged wall, but the dust motes hanging in the air, the faint hum of the school's ventilation system, even the distant sounds of the city outside. Haruhi, surprisingly, was still moving, her eyes still wide with awe. But Rin could feel it—a profound, unnatural stillness permeating the world around them. It was as if time itself had paused, or perhaps, something far more fundamental had been altered.
Without a second thought, Rin scooped Haruhi into his arms, carrying her princess-style. "We're leaving," he stated, and swiftly exited the classroom, making his way out of the school.
Haruhi, momentarily surprised by his sudden action, began to protest, punching his shoulder lightly, demanding to be put down. But as they neared a convenience store outside the school grounds, her protests died in her throat. The people inside, frozen in mid-stride, mid-reach for a snack, mid-conversation, were utterly motionless. Their expressions were caught in a perpetual tableau.
Rin realized what was going on. This wasn't just a localized phenomenon. This was widespread. He decided to head towards the plaza, the busiest area, to confirm his suspicions. As they moved through the streets, the scene repeated itself: cars frozen in traffic, pedestrians caught mid-step, birds suspended in flight. The entire world, it seemed, had become a still-life.
Despite the eerie, unsettling nature of the event, Haruhi was still vibrating with excitement. A genuine, undeniable supernatural event was unfolding right before her eyes, orchestrated by her own unconscious desires. She didn't mind how Rin was carrying her; she was too engrossed in the spectacle, enjoying every terrifying, exhilarating moment.
For Rin, however, a single thought echoed in his mind: I've made a minor problem. He could always escape back to the DXD world, of course, so for him, it truly was a minor problem. Still, he needed to find the other club members. Itsuki, Yuki, and Mikuru. He had to know if they, too, were frozen, or if their supernatural natures allowed them to move within this suspended reality.