I don't own Angel Beats or any related parties in anyway.

Forgive me for any grammar or spelling mistakes, it's hard to catch them all.

Side note: I will be using the Japanese tradition of using first or last names to resemble closeness, but I won't be adding honorifics mainly because I'm not 100% sure how they all work. The only Japanese I've been exposed to is anime, forgive me.

Arrival and Acquaintances

To imagine I'd die by drowning. This has to be a joke. I tried to pull my leg out of the car wreck, but it was useless. I was completely stuck. There was no way I would cut it off, and I was running out of air fast. I looked up to the surface and tried to swim up, but the weight on me was way too much. I closed my eyes. I started to smile. Well, this sucks.

Suddenly, I felt the weight on my leg disappear, and I felt myself start rising. So this is what it's like to be dead. Man, I wish I could go back. I kept on rising. I saw more light coming through, I guess the water surface is near. And then I felt myself break the surface-and stop.

I looked around completely confused; it turns out I was in a pool. There was a student walking around wearing a school uniform. I observed that it consisted of practically all black with a white undershirt, but I couldn't think of any schools that had a dress code along those lines. I started to stroke towards the pool edge, but then I saw my arm. I could have sworn I was wearing a white hoodie, but for some reason I donned the same blazer as the student. Well, this is strange. What to do, what to do? I decided to ask around for some information, and the closest person was that student.

"Umm, excuse me! May I ask where I am?"

"What are you? Dumb? School just finished and I see that you're taking a swim afterwards. I didn't know you were a swimmer."

Wow, what a weird guy. Doesn't he think it's strange that I decided to take a dip fully clothed? Then again, I'm a new kid, so maybe he's being kind? I tried to understand the situation and said, "Sorry, I'm new here, so I may do some weird things here and there like swimming fully clothed. Forgive me."

"New? Inagaki, you're not a new kid. I know you don't particularly like me, but I've seen you around, and you could at least acknowledge my presence. And swimming fully clothed isn't too weird. I mean, haven't you ever seen people fly out of that window next to the principal's office. Everyone's gotten used to that, so I doubt you can pull off anything that would surprise me. "

Wait, how does he know my name? I'm not a new kid? I don't even know this place. Heck, I thought I just died! Right before I asked him another question, blood squirted out of his head as if he was shot. I did what I thought was the most sensible thing at the time: scream, freak out, swim underwater, and hope that nothing would come to harm me. About three minutes later, I realized I was going to suffocate sooner or later. Well, suffocate here and face certain death or go up and face probable death. I guess I'm going up. I jumped off the bottom and kicked back to the surface to the face of a bored-looking girl. "Hmm, you have a pretty good lung capacity, three minutes and you're not even gasping. Impressive."

Stunned by a combination of this girl casually holding a conversation like this while tossing a smoking gun around and the fact that there was a dead guy behind her, I took a few seconds to respond, but it came out, "Err, thank you? I'm a swimmer, so I've trained my lungs, although three minutes is pretty long for a swimmer too. Anyways, I-um-you know there's a-well-dead perso-"

Cutting me off, she immediately responded. "Don't worry about him. He's not a real person. You play computer games?" I nodded awkwardly at the random topic change, but decided that she had the gun, so I probably shouldn't speak up, "good, he's an NPC, he looks normal, but he's really just a mindless humanoid thing. You'd never know if no one told you. They'll act normal no matter what you do though. You'll find a few humans, like you, living with NPC's, but the majority of humans will be wearing my uniform." I saw that she was wearing a white blazer with blue designs and a blue skirt.

"Guys where skirts?"

"I hope you're joking, just know that the male uniform is different from that NPC's. Don't say anything else dumb or I might shoot you too."

"Wouldn't it be bad just to kill other humans? And I thought I was already dead. I could have sworn I drowned trying to save Ka-"

"No need to talk about your death story. It's a personal thing here. I guess I forgot an important fact. You cannot die. You're already dead. Think of this place as purgatory."

"WHAT!? That's not possible! I can't be dead! I'm here!"

"Idiot." With that word, I saw her point the gun at my head and everything went black. I opened my eyes, looked around, and saw that there was blood everywhere. I felt my head for a bullet hole or something, but I seemed fine. I remembered a searing pain which must have been a bullet, but I actually felt great. I looked behind me and saw the girl. Alright, this is the afterlife. Or halfway there since she said this place was purgatory. I guess I should get used to some pretty strange stuff then. Like impossible death. Or people flying out of a window next to the principal's office. Must be one hell of a principal. When I thought of that, I remembered the guy that the girl shot. Did he revive too? I looked over, and saw that he disappeared. "Alright, you win. You can't die here, but what happened to that guy I was talking to? Did he get scared of you and run when he revived?"

"NPC's don't revive. And don't go on about that stupid you killed an innocent life stuff. It's just like shooting clay dolls, there's not alive in the first place. Exactly why they're called NPC's" I would really have to get used to a new life here.

"Uh-huh. I'm might take some time to get used to this place. I guess it's safe to say that you're my first friend here though. I'm Inagaki Kouhei. Nice to meet you."

"Friend, huh?" she let out a small laugh, and seeing her smile for the first time, I had to say she was quite pretty. "Alright, then I'll call you Kouhei. I'm Shintani Nanami. Pleased to make an acquaintance." She flipped her long, red hair at me, quickly did a 180, and tossed me a gun. "When I saw a new kid, I thought I should give him a gun, so here you go. It's a Jericho 941 F. Not like you know what that means though. Let's go meet everybody else," she stated as she started walking towards this school's main building.

Jericho 941 F. Yep, no idea what that means. "Err, Shintani!" I exclaimed, "Random question, how did you realize that I'm a human?"

"Humans act weird. I can't imagine an NPC swimming fully clothed. I was found sleeping in the school cafeteria on top of the stove, that type of stuff means human. You should watch out for them and try to recruit for the SSS too."

"SSS?" I asked, "Why would you make a group here. This is purgatory, right? Shouldn't we try to be moving on? To heaven or reincarnation or whatever happens?" She immediately faced me with a face half between scared and angry and attempted to calmly explain, "Move on? Why are you here? Don't you hate God? Wasn't life unfair? We're one step closer to God when we're dead. We can find him. We can fight him," with every word, she got more and more intense, showing a burning desire that didn't seem to fit her original picture. "Don't you want to rebel? The SSS found that everyone here hated their lives, and we want to rebel. We've even found traces of people who already passed on, but they wanted to rebel too. I guess they failed, but back to the point. Do you not want to rebel?"

Rebel against God? Everyone here hated their lives? What? Is there something I regretted in my life? I thought I died happy. Damn, should I not be here? I decided that I had to figure out the truth about this. I'll act along with it then. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's go, I want to meet everyone else here."

We were approaching the school's main building when I started thinking about the idea of rebelling against God. "Shintani, if we're trying to rebel against God, I'm forced to ask, have we found Him?"

"Nope, but we have a lead. The SSS believes there's an angel in this world, an agent of God. He's the student council president; we call him Angel. You'll notice him, he's the only NPC that can identify humans, but being an angel, I'm not sure if he's actually an NPC or something else. He tries to force us to move on and accept our lives, but we don't want to." Right before I responded, we entered the school, and she pushed me against the lockers. A boy glanced at us, waved and continued walking away. She took out her gun and pointed it at the boy. He brushed his red hair out of his eyes and stood straight up. I noticed he was only around my height which is only averagely tall, so I assumed his motion of supremacy meant he had more up his sleeve. Despite this, he just kept a calm smile on his face. "This, Kouhei, is Angel."

"Haven't I already told you not to call me that? It brings back bad memories. Call me Otonashi or Yuzuru." After hearing his request, Shintani immediately shot him. I thought a bullet at five meters would be impossible to dodge, but Angel just slightly nudged his head and the bullet missed him by an inch. He sighed before saying in an eerily robotic voice, "Guard Skill: Hand Sonic, Level 1" Two knives appeared to spawn out of his arms and he dashed at Shintani. She jumped to her left and off a locker while pulling out two knives from underneath her skirt. She flipped mid-air and slashed at Angel, but she only managed to take off a little bit of Angel's hair. She gracefully landed next to me when I started to comprehend the situation. Seeing how quick and fluid Shintani's motions were, I thought she'd be fine, but I noticed how calm Angel still was and started to worry. He sighed sprinted, directly at Shintani, and I quickly started deducting possibilities. They both appear to be seasoned fighters, but Shintani appears to react quicker than either can think. If Angel is going to make the dumb move of making a straight line at her, then he probably has an idea. Shintani's going to react too quickly and make a mistake, but can I help? I pulled out my gun and started to aim. I noticed how much my hands were shaking, and I realized that no matter how quickly I could understand the situation, it wouldn't help if I couldn't act. Right as Angel appeared to strike, Shintani reacted and started to parry, but Angel suddenly stopped his motion. As Shintani struck the air, Angel quickly threw his right arm at her to pierce her heart, but a bullet struck his arm at the last second. Screw aiming, I just need a lucky shot, and I got it. She'll survive if I accidentally kill her anyways, right? As I finished my thought, Angel whirled around and decapitated Shintani with his left arm's blade.

He cleaned the blood on his blades using his shirt. He then made the blades dissipate. "So, are you a friend of Shintani? You're probably human, but you're wearing an NPC uniform. Are you new?"

"You killed her! I know that we can recover from death, but she just lost her head!"

"Don't worry about it, everything heals. I could burn you to ashes and you'll be fine. This is odd though. I'm standing here doing nothing, and you have a gun. Why don't you try to shoot me? Isn't it better to die fighting than to just let me kill you?"

"You're not trying to kill me, so why should I try to kill you? I heard you're an agent of God. Could I ask him why he made everyone else's lives so unfair?

"I'm really not an Angel. As I said, I'm Otonashi Yuzuru. You say everyone else's lives were unfair. Are you not included in that group? I thought everyone here had regrets in life."

"I can't think of anything I regretted, but I would like to ask in lieu of everyone else."

"You're new; you don't even have a SSS uniform. I doubt you've ever met the rest of the group. It's strange that you're willing to represent them already. More importantly though, you say you can't think of any regrets. By any chance, do you suffer from amnesia?"

"I guess I'm a nice kid. I want to help others. They seem to be nice people, or at least she was," I explained pointing at Shintani's dead body, "and I don't have amnesia or anything of the sort, why?"

"No reason, maybe nostalgia, I guess. You say you're a nice kid, but maybe you're just insane. I just killed the first person you have gained any trust for in this world, and you decide to have a casual conversation with me. Looks like your girl might be coming back soon. So before you go to the SSS and everything, remember this, every fight has two sides, and neither side is bad. Come find me later. I spend a lot of time on the roof drinking coffee. See ya." With that, he nodded his head at Shintani and continued walking to somewhere.

I glanced down at Shintani's body, but I couldn't look long without feeling sick from the decapitated head, so I turned away, but I sat down so she could have some company when she woke up. I looked back, and her head was fine, looking at me as if we were in a normal situation. "Hey Kouhei, I'm bored. Amuse me."

"Err, weren't you leading me to the SSS or something. Do we lose a bit of our memory when we die or something?"

"No, it just got boring. The SSS room is the principal's office. You can find it yourself. Can you amuse me now?"

"I'll be going then."

"Aww."

I wandered around until I found the principal's office. It was at the top floor at the very end of the hall way which was a strange place for it in my opinion, but even stranger was the broken window next to it. Isn't that dangerous? The school should get that fixed. Then again, we can't die." I reached for the door knob and heard someone shout, "No! Wait!" I looked to my left to see a guy dressed in something besides the NPC uniform, presumably the male SSS uniform, along with a huge mallet swinging behind him. The last thing I saw was his blonde hair smash into me.

By the time I woke up, it was already dark. "Hey, dude. You alright? Nanami told me that there was a new boy wandering to the SSS room. Knowing how much of an airhead she was, I thought she wouldn't tell you how to get in. She said your name was, umm, Inazaki Kouhei?"

"Inagaki, but yeah, I guess that's me. What happened?"

"Ito Riku, pleased to meet you. So that door does lead to the SSS room, but you have to say the password or else a huge mallet swings and throws you out of that broken window. You probably figured that much out though. The password is 'No God, No Buddha, No Angels'."

"Wait, you're part of the SSS, right? They look for God and fight an angel. What's with that password?"

"I don't know; we didn't make it. It was made before the leaders founded the current SSS. My best guess is that the last SSS created it."

"Leaders? So there's more than one. Hmm, I guess I should get into the SSS room. Hey, just curious, what does SSS mean anyways?"

"It means War Front of the World of the Dead. Shinda Sekai Sensen in Japanese. I'll actually bring you into the SSS room now, but I can't promise that anyone will be in there. We mainly use it as a meeting room. Different places in school act as hangouts." We went to the principal's office again, said the password, and walked in. It was a simple room, three sofas around a coffee table, a desk, which I presumed to have once been the principal's, and random objects here and there. I immediately picked up that there were only two pieces of technology, a projector and a laptop. The rest were random weapons, trash, and knick knacks. There was also an area cleared out on a sofa. A small girl was sleeping on it. She seemed to be quite young, having one of those faces where she could be anywhere from eight through eleven. Her brown hair was covering most of her face, and it was tangled in her hands. She was sleeping peacefully, but she had a lot of cuts on her legs and arms. I started to walk over, but I tripped over some weird doll on the ground. The sound of me falling must have startled her because when I looked up she was pointing a wooden sword at me. She must have been surprised herself, as she stated, "Ah! New kid! Who are you?" She quickly put her wooden sword away and jumped up. I was still on the floor trying to get up saying, "Inagaki Kouhei. I'm new. I thought everyone here was around the age for high school. Is there a middle school division here too?"

"Nope, I know I look like I'm nine or something, but I'm actually seventeen!"

"... … … excuse me?"

"Hamano Ayaka! I look like I'm nine, but I'm seventeen! My birthday's actually in a week. Assuming I came here the same day I died. So is that my birthday or deathday? What do you think Kouhei?! Ahh, that's not important though, time's boring! Do you like playing? Everyone else here's too serious…" I looked back at Ito in shock because of Hamano's random burst of nonsense. He just glanced back at me with a sheepish smile and took over by saying, "As said, this is Ayaka. I guess she's your hyper kid-sister, even though she's around everyone else's age. Weird how there's only high school student's right?"

"I expected a professional team or something to be taking on God, but instead I meet up with a girl who's an airhead but gets bored really easily, a girl who looks like she's about eight years younger than she really is, and well, you seem to have some maturity at least. Haman-" Hamano put her hand to my mouth and clarified the relationships of the SSS to me. "Not Hamano. Ayaka. You can think as everyone here as friends in death, and friends call each other their given names, right!? Except that Angel guy. He's an enemy in death, I guess. Don't they say keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Should I call him Yuzuru then? Or maybe Yu-chan! That sounds weird; I'll stick with Angel."

Ito, or Riku since Ayaka wanted me to use given names, stopped her there. "Ayaka, if you want a playmate, you shouldn't scare Kouhei off on the first meeting. Kouhei, you probably don't know the time, since you were killed, but it's around one in the morning. Neither of us ate all day, so do you want to sneak in the cafeteria and grab some food? You don't have to go, but feel free. Come on Ayaka, I found an extra meal ticket, if you want it."

"YES! Wait, what is it?"

"Mapo Tofu."

"Ungh, it's spicy!"

"Sucks for you sweety. Just kidding, I have money, you can buy what you want. We'll be going now Kouhei. Later!" I watched them walk out the door. I walked towards the window and saw the baseball field. Since it was night time, I didn't expect there to be anyone on it, but I saw a few NPC's playing baseball. Playing baseball like normal people. As I thought about it, a life like that wouldn't be too bad, but now I'm here fighting an Angel who says he's not an Angel. Better than that, I'm going to be surrounded by some strange people. I knew this much, this is either going to be terrible or awesome. I left the room and climbed up to the roof to get some fresh air. I leaned on the railing and debated jumping off just for the thrill of it. I should have some fun while I'm here. Why not? As I prepared myself to jump, I was startled by a voice behind me musing, "Heh, I didn't actually expect you to come here. I especially didn't expect you to act like you're about to jump off. You might be worse than Hinata."

"Otonashi! Who's Hinata? Another SSS member?"

"Former SSS member. He was part of the first SSS."

"Did you force him to disappear? Are you going to do that to this SSS?"

"You could say I made him disappear, but I didn't force him by any means. He did it in his own free will."
"Wait, what do you mean? The SSS was made to rebel against you, Angel, Otonashi, Yuzuru, whoever you are! No one should want to disappear, why did he?"

"We all have secrets about our past that we might not want to share yet, secrets outside of our death stories. I'll repeat once again, do not call me Angel. I might just cry if you do."

"Cry?"

"The title of Angel, or student council president, wasn't always mine. I helped the last owner move on too. That's probably the best choice and biggest regret of my afterlife. No matter to you though, why did you come up here? I told you to come up if you wanted to talk to me."

"You never did say that actually. You just told me to come up. I do have some questions though." I looked off into the distance. I saw a lush green forest surrounding the school, but no town or buildings except the school and its facilities. There seemed to be a chill in the air, so I concluded that it was the start of autumn or the end of summer. The wind blew against my face as Otonashi walked up beside me and leaned against the railing. I jumped down from the railing onto the roof and put my back to it. I held my hand up to catch the wind as my uniform rustled in the wind. I sighed and begun to question Otonashi, "I noticed that you're considered the enemy here. I was told that you're trying to force us to move on. I don't exactly know how moving on works, but it probably has to do with fulfilling our life's regret. I noticed this though, when you walked by me for the first time, you didn't try to do anything with Nanami or me. You started walking away, only turning around when Nanami pointed her gun at you. Now I'm curious, do you really want to do anything with us at all?"

"You're sharp in noticing all of that. I see you're also a fast thinker if you were able to shoot my blade right before I stabbed your friend, but you seemed shaky, so I'll assume it was a lucky shot. Back to your original question, I can't really say for the sake of everyone here, but it's better if you were to believe them. If you believe that, you'll be accepted better into the SSS, and I believe that that is the best path for you to choose here. This really does bring up some heavy nostalgia. I want all of you to move on; it's saddening to watch all of you continue to suffer." Otonashi finished his sentence then started to laugh. He hushed himself, but kept a smile and longing eyes on his face. "Otonashi, if you're not an Angel or an NPC, are you a human?" He looked up abruptly before whispering, "Forgive me, this conversation possibly just got dangerous," and he kicked me off the ceiling.

Wow, I just finished my first chapter of my first fanfic. I'd like to start off by saying thank you for finishing that. I know my writing style tends to be long and drawn out, but I'll see what's reviewed before I make any changes. Along with that, please review, good or bad. I notice that I can't seem to get a grasp on what Otonashi would do in these situations, but then again, he's probably completely different from the anime. I'm also not a supremely creative guy when it comes to creating characters, so it'd be nice if you guys could help. If you want to help, here's a format for how to make a character:

Family name-Given name

Description of personality and any special skills (like how Kouhei's a swimmer or Nanami has very fast reactions)

Weapons (probably a side arm, melee weapon, and maybe a normal firearm.)

Physical description

Regret in life

Special facts (Yui was paralyzed in real life)