Angel Beats
prologue
I feel my blood seeping out of me. I see nothing but the handle of the blade in my hand. The man in front of me shouts, and lifts a forging hammer. The head slams into my skull. I remember something about that area being the frontal lobe, where the short term-memory is held. Well, what use is a brain damaged laborer? From this, I determine that the man might actually want me dead. Not like anyone knows or cares. As I die, I grip the weapon that the man had forced me to make. The weapon now embedded in my 'master's' chest. As I die, I only wish I could have…
Chapter 1
Where Am I?
I awake in an infirmary. I remember my name, age, and most of my life, but feel something's missing.. A young man who was probably three or four years older than me is sleeping sitting up in his chair.
I look about the room frantically, "Huh? Where… Where am I? Who are you?"
The guy jumps up, trying to fix his red hair. He laughed, "My name is Yuzuru Otonashi. I'm the student council president and the head of class SSS, or Shinda Sekai Sensen."
I knit my eyebrows, "Class SSS? So this is like… a school? I never enrolled in any schools."
Otonashi closes his eyes, as if in remembrance of a past event, "No one here enrolled."
My head starts to hurt from the cryptic talk, "What is that suppose to mean?"
He sighed, "It means that no one here truly intended to be here. It's a bit more complicated than that, but I don't think you want to get into the details."
I give him a sideways look, "Enlighten me."
Otonashi smiles at that, "Enlightenment is a hint."
I sigh, "Great. I'm at a Buddhist high school."
Otonashi laughs, "That's one I haven't heard yet. No, you're not at a Buddhist high school. This is the afterlife. Do you remember how you died?"
I lay my head back onto the small infirmary cushions, closing my eyes, "Awesome. And I imagine that you are god?"
Otonashi somberly shakes his head, "No, I'm just Student Council President."
To humor him, I let out a relieved breath, "Well at least now I don't have to add a student council president with a messiah complex to the list of crazy people in my life. Afterlife. Whatever."
Otonashi laughs again, "For a newly dead teenager, you sure have some good material."
Now it's my turn to laugh, "Thanks, I'll be here all eternity."
That reminds Otonashi of something, "Not exactly. You see, someone who came here never got the chance to live a fulfilled life. The courses that you take here will be tailored to help you live the life that was taken from you. Almost no one here ever achieved their highest goals. When you finally do that, you will pass on. What happens after that, we don't know for sure. We assume that we'll get reborn, but we don't know."
I tilt my head, "Why do you say almost? Who ended up here even after they achieved their goals?"
Otonashi flashes me a picturesque smile, "You're looking at him."
I fake a gulp, and do the best bow you can do in a hospital bed,"Wow. I feel so underdressed."
Otonashi laughs again. "Did you die falling on your head from the stage at a stand up gig?"
My face clouds over,losing its joking smile, "Not a chance."
Otonashi jumps, "What's with this change?"
I look at him. "I don't know how I died, but I know what I did in life. You see, when I was around twelve, my parents walked into my room at night. I was a very light sleeper, and I immediately woke up. I smiled at them, and said 'what's going on?' my father pushed my arms into the bed, and my mother put a white rag over my head. I tried to breathe, and I fell asleep. Every couple of hours, I'd wake up, and my mother would put the rag on my face again."
Otonashi nodded, the smile on his face long gone.
I continued, "After what I gauge to be around ten hours, I woke up in a strange room with a strange man. He told me that I belonged to him now. I told him something that my grade school teacher had taught me. 'But slavery is against the law.' He simply laughed, stoking the hearth fire. 'You look out there and tell me who you think it is that knows?' I looked through the window and saw a sweeping mountain range. Far out here, not a single person would be able to do anything for me. I looked down the path to see my parents laughing, arm in arm. My mother counted money, and my father looked at car magazines. They got in the vehicle, and drove away. The man looked at me, smiling. 'Are you content now?' I nodded, and walked to the hearth."
I looked down at my hands. They still retained the scars that I'd been afflicted with in life, "For a year, he had me mine for metal, while he pored over old Middle Eastern scrolls. He told me that they were the lost instructions for forging a Damascus sword. The sword, he believed, would go for millions to wealthy sword enthusiasts. He, however, was not one to work at a hot forge for hours on end. The rest of my life, I forged the blade that he wanted so badly. However, he was horrible with surveillance. He couldn't think of his little slave trying to think for himself. One day, I stole from him a separate amount of instructions. I finished the Damascus sword with enough time to put my plan into action. One day, he finally walked into the room where I worked…"
I paused, lost for words. I couldn't remember anything beyond that point, no matter how hard I tried to.
Otonashi looks at me. "What's up?"
I shake my head, trying to think. "I… I can't remember anything beyond that point. I know everything else, all of the sweat, the blood, the scents of everything, but after that I can only draw up blanks. Is that strange?"
Otonashi shakes his head. "If you were hit on the head before you died, you usually don't remember anything. You remember more than I did."
I look at him again. "You didn't remember your life?"
He nods. "I died not long after a train wrecked inside a tunnel. I was able to gain my memories back through my friend Ayato Naoi's hypnotic abilities."
I nod to that. "And where is this... This Naoi now?"
Otonashi looks to the sky, and I get the idea. Well, I somewhat get the idea. "So… he died?"
Otonashi looks back down at me. "No, no one here dies. This is the afterlife, we're already dead. But when someone is able to fulfill whatever they didn't finish in life,then we are able to disappear, and, presumably, be reborn on Earth. That is why we have classes; they are suited to how we are going to fulfill our unfinished lives."
"But… But I've never taken a grade school class before! How can I be expected to complete a high school class?" I sputter.
Otonashi laughs once more. "I'm certain that we'll find somewhere that you won't look like a fool. You look strong, maybe you could fill up your schedule with phys. ed. classes. That might work. Until we determine your schedule, let me show you where the Shinda Sekai Sensen spends their off time."
Finally, it has been fully redone! I got rid of the second boy because he was my brother's character and I didn't know how I would use the strange world he created in junction with my own, so I'm going to redo the whole thing. No offense to him, but the worlds are just incompatible.
