Project Rebirth
Yuzuru Otonashi doesn't know what happened to him last night.
He woke up as usual this morning, but he can't help but feeling strange. It's as if he has just returned from a different world.
Last night, he had a dream.
A dream that involves a completely different world than the world he's in right now.
In that dream, he was dead.
He remembered meeting quite a few people there.
All of them, dead, just like him.
He remembered making friends with those dead people.
It's just weird, those 'dead' people there seems more alive than this 'living' world he lived in right now.
But he just can't remember what happened.
He can't remember them at all.
Except, maybe...
Angel?
Who's Angel?
For Yuzuru, Angel was someone very important to him during the time he was in that 'dream', but he just couldn't remember 'how' she was important to him.
She?
Yeah, Angel's female.
A very beautiful and cute one, too.
Yuzuru's memories of her is vague, but he still remember that she has a long white hair.
He couldn't remember all of her, but he just knew that she meant something to him in that dream.
But, it was all just a dream.
Is it?
"Screw it." Yuzuru thought. "I'm late for school now!"
Yuzuru just couldn't believe his fate.
These late night studies to become a qualified doctor has been killing him. He fell asleep during the class twice in a role, and got scolded by his teacher as a result. His after class task almost cost him his lunch. Even worse, his biology teacher asked him to participate in the somewhat awkward 'human anatomy' experiment. To add insult to injury, he was chosen to explain the 'rectum' section. (Well, it's the part where you use to...err...export unwanted materials in your body through your, yeah, that...)
"How is it that Murphy's Law always occurred to me?" Yuzuru asked himself, annoyed by his not-so-happy afternoon.
After the school ended, Yuzuru returned home, and found his sister waiting for him.
His younger sister, Hatsune Otonashi, is a cheerful and friendly person, but can also sometimes be very annoying to him. She's also a manga freak. He had to buy her at least two comic books a week...
However annoying she is, she's still the only family left to him.
Yuzuru and Hatsune's parents died in a plane accident almost five years ago, leaving Yuzuru and Hatsune to live with their aunt at the local inn, where they helped their aunt in her inn business to earn some part-time money.
Even still, they weren't that close to aunt, really. It's true that she has been nice to him and his sister, and always supported them in education and welfare, but for all that matters, they only have each other.
"Brother! I'm going to my friend's birthday today! Could you help me with an errand today?"
"What errand?" Yuzuru asked in an annoyed voice.
"Aw, don't sound so bored! Aunt just wanted you to sent this letter to Mrs. Kouko, her friend in a little town called Hikarizaka. She's just got married, you know!"
"Well, why didn't she just sent a congratulation email or message or something? Letters are so last century!" Yuzuru protested.
"Ah, you dummy, congratulation letter is the best way to give blessings to someone's wedding!" Hatsune argued.
"Oh, right, I'll do it. Just give me that letter..." Yuzuru gave up, He'd never really had any chance at winning an argument with his sister anyways.
"Really, you'll do it for me? Yay!" Hatsune cheered, then quickly ran to the front door.
"Take care of yourself, brother!" She gave him a lively smile before running out of the inn.
"Damn it, as if today's sufferings is not bad enough, now I'm an errand boy for my sister!" Yuzuru complained to himself all the way to the post office. He already changed into his casual clothes, wearing a white shirt with light-green jacket and black jeans.
After sending that letter, Yuzuru checked the time in his cell phone.
It was only 17.12, there's still time to wonder around.
And with that, Yuzuru walked to the nearby park to enjoy some free time he desperately wanted.
Normally, the park is usually a peaceful and quiet place for him to spent some much-needed time to do some revision on school lessons. But not today, as the park's become a place for the local concert event.
Ah, darn it. Yuzuru looked at the sign showing information about today's concert.
'Girls Delight Mobsters'
What kind of name was that? Yuzuru wondered.
It sounds strange, but he can't shake the feeling that he knows the band's name from somewhere.
Girls Delight Mobsters...
Girl...De...Mo...
What the heck.
Ah! My mind's gone crazy from all these hard work! Need to get some air!
Yuzuru hurried to get out of there, but his path was blocked by a crowd of people who's trying to see the concert.
"Hey! Get out of the way, man! I wanted to see my precious Yui on the stage!" A blue-haired teenager in a baseball uniform shouted.
"Order! You must keep order! Or else you won't be seeing the concert! Listen to me!" A green-haired boy, who's apparently a staff working at the concert, shouted back at that blue-haired boy. Those two shared a furious look to each other for a while.
Yuzuru tried to find the alternate route to get out of there. The concert's already started and the crowds is rushing in uncontrollably. He caught a glimpse of the people on the stage.
The Girls Delight Mobsters consisted of all female members. Yuzuru saw two of the members, one is the lead singer who's also a guitarist. She had a pink-red hair, while the other singer on the stage is a young girl who had a pink hair with two bunches tied up with red laces. She's wearing a weird costume with a devil tail.
Ah, this feeling again...
Yuzuru can't help but feeling that he knew them from somewhere...it's like a deja vu.
"Hey, are you alright?" A female voice asked, Yuzuru turned to her.
"Who are you?" Yuzuru asked back, the girl in front of him has a purple hair and sea green eyes. Her hair has a headband and a yellow ribbon.
"Ah, sorry! Where are my manners! I'm Yuri. I'm the supervisor of this concert. I saw that your face looked kinda weird, so I thought you needed some help." A girl named Yuri said.
"Um, I'm alright. Anyways, thanks for asking. I was just having a strange feeling."
"What kind of feeling?" Yuri asked.
"It's the first time I've ever seen this band, but I can't help shake the feeling that I've know them before..." Yuzuru told her.
"Oh, we get that a lot. GirlDeMo is a very popular student band in this town, they've even sold their first album already! With my little help, of course! It's no surprise you might've know them from somewhere. We've been making our reputation lately." Yuri explained.
"Oh, I see" Yuzuru signed.
So it was nothing...I was just paranoid.
"That's a nice concert you've got there. If I have a chance, I might go to their concert again sometimes." Yuzuru said. This person, Yuri. She's very friendly.
"No problem! We're having a concert at our school, the Saisei* High School, in a couple of days. If you wanted, you could come to our concert that day." Yuri said happily.
"Whoa, I actually studied at Saisei High School! So you studied there, too?" Yuzuru said, surprised at what he had heard.
"What a coincidence! All of us studied there! I'm part of a student group, the Saisei Student Services, or you could call it SSS, for short." Yuri said proudly.
"That's amazing, Yuri. It's a wonder why we haven't meet each other yet, after all these years in that school." Yuzuru said.
"Well, it's a big school, and I had to do a lot of works, so I haven't got enough time to see my friends except those in the SSS. But we always welcome new members, you could join us if you wanted!"
"Ah, I'll think about it. Thank you again for helping me, but I really need to get home now. See you at school!"
"Right! No problem! Thank you for coming by!" Yuri smiled at him.
Ten minutes later, Yuzuru was walking down the business distinct.
What a day...
Yuzuru thought back about the recent events that happened to him. He could've sworn he recognize Yuri from somewhere, not to mention that GirlDeMo band. It's like something got stuck in his head but he doesn't know what it is.
And those two guys, the blue-haired boy and the green-haired boy. He never met them before in his life, but he couldn't help but feeling that they meant something to him, even though he had only met them for a couple of seconds before being pushed away by the crowd.
He was thinking about these mysterious events when he walked past a young girl leaning at the building wall. She was wearing a brown hat, a light blue jacket over her white dress.
She was humming a strange tune.
What the...
I recognized that tune...
And that voice...
It couldn't be...
Yuzuru turned back, just in time to see the girl starting to walk away.
He reached his arm out.
It's impossible...
How could she be here?
It's...ah...damn it!
Memories started floating back to him, hitting him like a strong wave hitting the shore side rocks.
SSS, GirlDeMo, Afterlife, Shadows, Angel, God, Life, Death...
His hand finally touched her shoulder.
"Kanade-chan, is that you?"
"Project Afterlife proved to be a failure, sir."
Somewhere in a disclosed location, two men in black suits started discussing about their failed 'project'.
"It's just a minor setback. There was a saboteur. At least the Shadow Incident ended peacefully. The participants all survived, that alone made it a success."
"The last participant, database name: Yuzuru, was the last one to log out of the system, sir. As of now, he's not aware of the past two years he's been in coma from the train accident that cost him his life."
"Yuzuru, eh? Isn't that the boy who saved all those lives from that collapsed tunnel?"
"Yes, sir."
The first man recalled the events of how he met the young boy named Yuzuru Otonashi.
That boy saved everyone. He sacrificed himself to save all those lives.
But he didn't deserve to die.
A good soul cannot be allowed to be gone like that.
And so, he saved him. He gave him a new artificial heart, while using his heart as a donor for a young white-haired girl who's suffered from a severe heart damage caused by a major accident.
Unfortunately, it didn't help anything, and the girl went into coma as well.
Why is the world so cruel at young people like them?
And so, he created a new world for them, using technologies created by his father. A power to create a virtual world, a world where they could live in peace. A world where they could be anything they wanted to be. A world where they could do things they couldn't in their real life state.
That was the purpose of Project Afterlife.
Believe it or not, he created this new world when he was just only 15 years old, being a computer prodigy and the son of one of the most revolutionary programmer in the history might have something do with his unbelievable knowledge.
But even the most perfect man cannot have anything, he was disabled, right from his waist down, he was cursed with legs that could not walk. They call it the brittle bone disease, a disease which affected your limbs so you cannot use your limbs properly.
He understand the pain of being disabled, being someone who could never achieve their 100% capacity no matter what they do, and so, he decided to create a world, a wonderland for those disabled people, for them to experience life the way it was meant to be while he tried to 'fix' them in the real world.
Even with cybernetic legs, he didn't stop in helping those poor souls, unlike his father, whose work has killed almost four thousands people just to satisfy his childhood dream.
He never really liked his father, after all.
Kayaba Akihiko could be a lot of things, but being a good father was not one of them. Not a single time he bought presents for his birthday, nor taken him to the hospital when he's sick. He always cared more for his works than his own child. That's why he didn't really feel anything at all when Kayaba died because of a glitch in his own creation.
And thus, Hideo Akihiko turned to something he could do, something his father would never do; helping people.
For four years, he succeeded in saving most of the participants in Project Afterlife. Two years after the server went online, a lot of them were cured or helped to get over their traumatic experiences. Even the white-haired girl was saved, and Yuzuru, yeah, that boy was also saved. The upgraded artificial heart works like a charm. He wouldn't even know that almost half of his body was controlled by artificial tissues.
But there was a setback.
One participant grew tired of the world he created, and tried to revolt against the system, leading to the infamous Shadow Incident that almost killed every people inside that world. He discovered the secret of using the systems to his advantage, to manipulate the minds of those inside that world. Most of the people inside Afterlife were forced to log out of the system before their minds got consumed by him.
Nevertheless, the Shadow Incident was finally resolved by the people living inside that world working together. He had to give it to those people; even when the situation for them is hopeless, they won't ever stop fighting. They will never give up no matter what.
But the result from the Shadow Incident was severe, and all participants were forced to log out of that system, even though most of them grew attached to the life lived there. But there was no choice.
And so, Project Afterlife came to an end.
All participants were logged out of Afterlife with no remaining memories of what they did inside that world left. They were given false memories to help them getting back to live their normal lives. Their relatives were given trainings and advices on how to conceal the information about the project from the participants.
Project Afterlife never existed for them. There was no afterlife.
"Sir, there's still some people who needs help."
A scene in front of him showed a picture of a young boy. Probably 17-18 years old, he has a black hair.
"This kid was in coma for almost two weeks now."
"And why was that?"
"He was attacked by an unknown assailant two weeks ago by a poison that gave him severe brain damage. Since that, he's been held up by the Japanese Government to participate in some top secret military project."
"But then, it seems that his mind was damaged beyond repair, so they handed him over to us, hoping that we could do something to help him."
The man looked at the boy's face on the screen.
"He's still very young."
"But isn't he the one who saved all those lives?"
"He was a hero in a world that doesn't exist anymore. A world my father created. There are no heroes in real life. Even if there's one, they'll probably ended up like him."
The man stared at the boy's name on the screen.
It reads: Kirigaya Kazuto.
"Send him to participate in our new project. We're gonna save this boy no matter what."
"Yes, sir. Mr. Akihiko."
The man in black suit started to walk away.
"Begin Project Rebirth."
Editor's note: This chapter has been rewritten, for the sake of fixing the flaws in the original timeline, where I made Angel Beats! timeline to overlap with SAO timeline and accidentally made Yuzuru and the SSS to become too old than I first imagine, and too old for them to still be studying in high school. So, using the SAO timeline table on the swordartonlinewikia . com. I've created a new timeline to match the SAO timeline to the Angel Beats! timeline without making too much age differences (and also illogical) to the main characters. In short, the SAO Incident took place FOUR YEARS BEFORE this story, while Yuzuru went to the Afterlife, and began the Angel Beats! timeline, TWO YEARS EARLIER, which means that he went to the Afterlife at almost the same time as Kirito and co. escaped SAO. Further information will be explained at the end of the chapter 3, which will get a rewritten, too.
*Saisei means Rebirth in Japanese. That's a lucky choice a get, because I don't know even a little Japanese. I just found it while searching the Japanese dictionary on the net. I tried to find a word that will match the SSS acronym in the real world, and I got this, which has a meaning related to the plot I'm going to write as well. Lucky me!