Angel Beats!
Ichiban no Takaramono

"Thank you, for giving your life to me." he heard her whisper against his chest. He suddenly pitched forward, his center of gravity changed. His knees hit the ground where Kanade's feet were only moments before. His arms moved to pull her back to him, his mind refusing to accept what happened. He stayed there, tears running down his face as he breathed hard. He wrapped his arms around himself tightly, before looking up and screaming.

"Kanade!" his voice rang around the school, this waypoint for the dead. Had anyone been watching, they would have noticed every NPC looking in his direction, his voice having rang that clear. At the moment, though, he may as well have been alone. She was gone, having finally fulfilled her dying regret. Everyone was gone. The Afterlife Battlefront was gone, disbanded. He was the sole remaining member.

"I'm ready." he said aloud, still looking up at the sky. "I've found my fulfillment. I'm ready to move one." he continued, his voice breaking. He stayed there on his knees, tears falling off his cheeks onto the ground below him. He had watched all of them disappear, one by one. He knew that one moment you were there, and the next you were gone.

"I said I'm ready!" he yelled, hitting the ground with his fist. "You fucker! I'm ready to move one! Why won't you let me move one!?" he cried, pitching to the side. He pulled his knees up and wailed, his thoughts running wild. He remembered everything about them, their laughs, their smiles, the operations they performed, their downtime.

"Why...?" he muttered, his throat having grown raw from the screaming and crying. "Why can't I move on?"

"Please, no!" he heard a girl's voice ring out behind him. He slowly turned and looked up the stairs to see a young girl sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest. "What...how...where...?" she muttered, starting to go into shock.

With no little ease, he pulled himself to his feet and started to climb up the stairs, whipping his tears away as he walked. The girl saw him and started to back up.

"Who...who are you?" she stammered.

"My name's Otonashi." he said, holding his hand out. "You?"

"No...Nodaka." she said, her eyes big. "Where...where are we?"

"The afterlife." he said simply, figuring she must have had her memories. "Or at least, one part of it."

"So I really am..." she trailed off, obviously unable to say it.

"Yeah." he said simply. "Welcome to the Acceptance Battlefront."

"The Acceptance Battlefront?" she said, looking at the patch on his arm. "Rebels Against the God?"

"When I first got here, it was the Afterlife Battlefront." he explained, still holding his hand out. She slowly took it, and he pulled her to his feet. "I'm the last member. The rest moved on."

"Moved on?"

"Reincarnated...go to Heaven...don't really know." he said with a shrug.

"So why are you still here?" she asked, getting his face to fall.

"I guess because I wasn't supposed to be here to begin with."

-Angel Beats!-

Time moved on. With Nodaka's prompting, he started to keep track of the days they had spent in the world. Those days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years. Every few weeks, a new soul entered the world, and Otonashi would be there to greet them. He became the Student Body President, and named Nodaka as his vice president. They turned the student body room into the new base for the Acceptance Battlefront.

Their numbers grew. With a silent agreement, each core member would help a certain amount of people accept their life and find fulfillment before moving on themselves. Slowly, only Nodaka remained with Otonashi, claiming she felt she should see him off before she went herself. He never asked her to stay with him, yet at the same time never asked her to leave.

As the years went on, the memories of the Afterlife Battlefront slowly started to fade. Their would be days where, try as he might, he couldn't picture anyone's face or smile. Even Kanade's would leave him sometimes, yet never for long. Yet, when the day would be over and he lied down to sleep, he could still hear their laughter filter through.

"Sir, we have word from Sakaki that someone new has shown up." Nodaka told him, pulling him from his thoughts. He turned away from the pictures he hand up on a wall and turned to look at her.

"Alright." he said. "Do we have a name?"

"No." she said, shaking her head. "Amnesia-type."

"Never a fun feeling." he muttered, his own entrance into this world coming to the forefront of his mind. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he had asked Naoi how he had learned hypnosis.

"Here she is." one of his new members, Sakaki, said, leading a small girl into the room. Otonashi look up at her and felt his heart stop. At least, if he had a heart. He knew he didn't, however, because the girl who just walked into the room had it.

"Kanade?" he asked, hoping his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. She looked up at him, her face confused for a moment before her amber eyes grew large.

Yu...Yuzuru..." she said. The others watched as she walked around the table. Otonashi stood up and pulled her into his arms, crying loudly.

"Kanade." he said, his tears falling into her hair. He never thought he would see her again, and yet here she was, in his arms. "Please don't leave me again."

"Boss..." Nodaka said, trailing off for a moment. She collected herself and stood up, causing everyone to turn to her. "You've lead us this far, and taught us how to move on. You've been here far to long. It's time you moved on as well."

"Nodaka." he said, looking at her.

"Yuzuru," Kanade said, drawing his attention, "come with me this time. I love you as well. My life was unfulfilled because there was no one to spend it with."

"Kanade..." he said, leaning down. "I still love you." he spoke softly before their lips met for the first time.

Nodaka and others looked at the empty space in front of them, the silence deafening. She slowly walked to where the two of them had been standing, and let out a sigh.

"What now?" one of the others asked, turning to look at her.

"We carry on with the Otonashi Battlefront." she said, taking a seat in the president's chair.

"We're changing it from the Acceptance Battlefront?"

"We're changing it and going to be keeping it the Otonashi Battlefront to remember the man who made sure we know the way." she said, leaning forward. "Hopefully, we never see Yuzuru Otonashi in this world again."

-Angel Beats!-

He walked down the street, muttering about his idiot friend and her idiot form of "fortune telling" that she claimed was correct the majority of the time. He thought she was great, there were times when he really did wonder about her. As if finding his "true love" would be as easy and it being the first girl he heard humming My Song by that girl rock band.

Someone humming the song next to him as he walked stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned quickly and caught sight of a girl who looked maybe a year or so younger than him. Her hair was short and kept under a hat, while her light sun-dress matched her complexion perfectly.

As she started to walk away, he turned and sped up to catch her. He reached his hand out, and tapped her shoulder.

-END-

(A/N: My sister likes the ending shown at the end of episode thirteen, where someone looking like Otonashi meets someone looking like Kanade. I like the Another Epilogue OVA from the blu-ray that shows Otonashi staying behind, since that is more in-character for him. Here's a mixture of the two.)